


Washed Away

by WackyGoofball



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Romance, hopefully in-character LOL, lady stoneheart encounter, lots of emotional drama that may cause heartaches and tears, still in the early stages of development, we'll have to see what becomes of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2018-07-12 13:34:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 67,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7107025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WackyGoofball/pseuds/WackyGoofball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime joins Brienne in her quest of finding Sansa, or so he thinks. </p><p>The wench is acting strange, that much he can tell, but beyond that, it's all a huge mystery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The World's Breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lorilay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorilay/gifts).



> Hello everyone! Thanks for looking into this story. 
> 
> As I said in my tags, I am still in the early developing stages of this fanfic. But I want to post things in the hope that this will maneuver me out of the deep depths of my writer's block. This one's been ghosting through my computer for an awfully long time now, and I hope that this may get me to wrap it up somehow. 
> 
> This is not supposed to be a theory as to what I think will go down with the LSH encounter in the books. It's all just fantasy. My book knowledge is also limited almost exclusively to JB stuff. Those chapters I have read, but more global issues are only based on half-knowledge and internet research. I will try my best to stay in canon, but if there are inaccuracies, I hope you can forgive them in favor of the plot. :D
> 
> Oh yeah, still no native. Still no beta. I make my own mistakes and I love to hate them all equally. :)
> 
> I gift this to lorilay. After we've been discussing that on tumblr for a while, I now believe she's the one I should dedicate this to. Much love. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy.

Jaime kicks some rock over the dry leaves as he tries to find a more or less comfortable position near the campfire.

He actually thought that he wouldn’t ever have to sit and sleep on muddy, stony ground again. In the Lannister camps, he had enough squires to build him a second bed if he had wanted one. By the Seven, they probably would have started a fight over who may get to hold his cock while he relieved himself.

Yet, here he is… in the same bloody position he was when he travelled to King’s Landing.

With the wench.

History seemingly _does_ repeat itself.

Just that it’s not the same, at all. At some point Jaime reckons he should be glad for it that the wench talks even less than she did the last time he’s seen her.

Just that it bothers him… a lot.

Jaime even had to put out his soothing tones to make Brienne reconsider on making camp for the night. After they had only managed to leave midday due to Jaime still requiring to wrap up some business in the camps, they could not leave any earlier – after all, as the one leading the siege, you can’t just take off during such without telling people what you are up to, right? Or rather… let them know as much as is required – because sure as the Seven Hells burn eternally aren’t they supposed to know what he is up to, searching for Sansa Stark.

But the wench would have ridden through the night, had he not talked to her in a small, almost comforting kind of voice. And that despite the fact that he is almost certain that she still has a lingering fever, and the amount of wounds makes him ever the more confident in his prediction. But of course, she refused whenever he asked or demanded. Stubborn thing she is.

Some things _truly_ never seem to change.

Just like her sour expression didn’t change much, except for that wound to her cheek she won’t talk about either, no matter how much he probes at her. Yet again the woman knows exactly, or rather doesn’t know but simply ends up doing it, how to make him want to shout at her to get her jaws apart and simply say what is the matter with her. Instead, he spent most of the ride talking to himself, and watching Brienne hide her ungainly face the best she could, swaying back and forth in the saddle to the point that his worry almost got the better of his anger and frustration. But really only just.

They ate in silence as the sun had dipped behind the canopy to paint the leaves in shades of orange an yellow. And now Jaime finds his mind drifting as he continues kicking at stones, leaning back against the stone he settled down against.

“… Is there any chance any time soon that you’ll tell me a bit more about your journey and how we are here?” he asks, breathing the words out as though they were smoke.

Brienne’s blue eyes flicker to him once, twice, but then she ducks her head again. Like a baby bird that doesn't know how to fly anymore and instead sinks to the ground before it can spread its wings. A small bluebird. Jaime has to try hard not to roll his eyes and moan in sheer frustration, however. He lets out a long sigh instead.

 _Patience_ , he reminds himself. _The more you push this woman, the harder she pushes back, like a mule._

“Is there _anything_ you can tell me? I am tired of talking to myself. So would you have the courtesy to say _something_?”

“I’m sorry.”

“ _No_. You’ve said that way too often throughout the day, and I find that more than just unsettling. I’m not used to you apologizing. I mean _actual_ conversation. I know you usually don’t like to take part in it, but I need human interaction that goes beyond two word sentences, woman,” he grunts. “There must be something to talk about.”

“… No interesting stories, I’m afraid, Ser,” is the only reply he gets. Jaime leans his head back, letting out another deep sigh.

Sighing and riding horses will seemingly be the main part of their journey, or so it appears.

“For quite some time my greatest conversation partner was someone without a tongue. And I daresay he’s been more talkative than you.”

The wench huffs at that, hiding her face impossibly more as she gets up, even though it seems to strain her, “I’ll get more firewood.”

Jaime lets out the next sigh as he watches the woman trot off, her steps uneven. Truth be told, a part of him wasn’t just surprised but relieved to see her after all this time. He didn't even dare to think he'd see her again. But now he’d rather have her act in the stubborn ways he knows of her before they parted in King’s Landing. Because that is the woman he felt he could deal with. The woman he knew.

Something is different about her, _very_ different, and the problem is that Jaime doesn’t know what it is that seems to have changed the texture of her very being. He can’t put his finger on it. Before, she seemed so easy to figure out, but now? Now it seems like the woman standing before him only shares little shreds and pieces with the Brienne who dropped a stone on Robin Ryger. She walks hunched. Her footsteps are almost not audible, even on dry leaves, when she used to stomp her way through life, no matter who took offense or not. And a part of him would rather have her mulishly stubborn than like this. Because that is the Brienne he understood, but this one? He has no clue how to get responses out of her, after he could play her with such ease back on the way to King's Laning. Even his teases fail on her now.

But then again… he also thought he had Cersei all figured out, and that was… a lie.

So maybe he has to say goodbye to the idea that he understands anyone at all. Tyrion? He is good at it, the little devil, wherever he may be hiding now. But Jaime himself? It seems to be the case that he knows less than he ever gave himself credit for – if he can’t even figure out someone as basic as Brienne of Tarth. Or perhaps this was the wrong interpretation right from the start – and she is just too complex for him to figure, hidden behind mulish stubbornness, freckled skin, and an ungainly face.

Jaime closes his eyes, trying to figure out a new approach to make the wench talk at last, but the more he thinks, the more tired her gets. As it appears, he grows old all of a sudden, too.

He barely registers her return.

She is really way too silent in her steps these days.

“Perchance we should just get drunk to loosen up your tongue,” he huffs, eyes still closed.

Brienne doesn’t reply to that.

“… I guess I should have foreseen that _answer_.”

And if it weren't for this queer situation, he'd probably open a skin of wine and simply drink to numb some of that dull ache settling deep in his bones, an uneasiness that leaves hims muscles tensed, yet curiously relaxed.

“Can you at least tell me how you came by those wounds?” he asks after a long moment of silence, which seem to stretch more and more with every second passing.

He's asked that question a good dozen times throughout the day, but that won't stop him from asking again. He is just so tired of people's lies.

“I told you, a bite,” Brienne repeats.

“I gathered that much, but what bit you? When? Why? You know, if you provided a bit more context, I wouldn’t have to poke you with those questions all the while,” Jaime tells her. "That'd save us both quite some trouble."

“I do not wish to talk about it, Ser,” Brienne tells him, swallowing thickly. "Please."

And if he is not mistaken, he can see a glimmer of unshed tears dancing over her big blue eyes.

The worst is that it makes him feel bad himself, for whatever bloody reason that may be now.

“Then tell me what you’d wish to talk about, by the Seven," he grumbles.

Brienne bites her thick lower lip, her eyes glimmering ever the more. Why does everyone have to be complicated these days? Why can’t people just say one thing and mean that very same thing?

He studies her again as she pulls her knees to her flat chest to rest her square-shaped head on her knees, though even that position seems to cause her discomfort.

This really starts to make him sick.

Or maybe it’s just that bloody onion broth.

“There must be _something_. Why don’t you tell me something about Tarth? You are so fond of that place, aren’t you?” he exhales, noticing how the fight leaves his voice despite the fact that wants to shake her by the shoulders. But then again, he wouldn’t in such a situation. She seems badly hurt enough.

“It’s my home.”

“Right. So tell me a bit about it. If only to hear someone other than myself talking. Can you do that? I think I deserve that bit of credit for coming with you, ay?”

“… Have you ever been to the Stormlands, Ser?”

“I have most definitely never seen Tarth, if that's what you are asking. From what I’ve heard, it’s more barren rock than anything else.”

“There are a lot, but there’s also beautiful meadows and creeks… You should see it during spring… And Evenfall Hall is one of its kind. Small, perhaps, compared to places like the Red Keep, or the keeps of the other great houses, but no less wonderful. The windows are painted so that the light cascades in all colors of the rainbow during the day…”

Jaime allows a small smile to flash across his face. At last the woman finally talks. And Jaime must say, he almost forgot how soothing her voice can sound like if she isn’t being pig-headed stubborn on proving a point, even at the danger of sounding like a barking dog. But now? Now that is the kind of voice he can imagine would even bring small babes to fall into deep slumber. It's a voice that's even smaller than the one he heard when he was still lost in his fever after the Brave Companions had taken them, an with them his hand.

“… I usually stayed outside, though, as a child. Went around to search small adventures… or ways to hide, I suppose. I had my own boat. I built it myself. I was so proud of it, even though it was not well made or with fancy decoration. It held, though. Even through a storm… I loved to row and sail out until Tarth was all but a stretch of brown at the horizon…”

“You went off alone?”

“Of course. Father never would have let me, had he known… though then again, he probably did and just left me in the belief that I was swift in my escape.”

Jaime knows his father never would have done such a thing, but he can’t deny that he is happy for her that she didn’t have a Tywin Lannister for a father.

Though he does wonder what would have become of him, had he been born into another family, a clan like Brienne’s. Perhaps some many great misfortunes could have been prevented right from the start. But then again… it doesn’t change a thing about the fact that those things already happened. So where is the point in pondering on the maybes and what ifs?

He’s dreamed while awake for far too long.

“And what did you seek to find out there? In the midst of the sea?”

“… You also come from the coast, yes?”

“Of course. Just from the other side of the continent. I jumped off the cliffs of the bays in Casterly Rock as soon as I could swim,” Jaime says with a small smile.

Those were better days, truly. When everything was still in a strange sort of balance. When he and Cersei were just twins, brother and sister. When Tyrion was just his little brother, a sweet, tiny child that looked a bit queer but was not the monster Cersei and their father tried to make of him. And Tywin his strict father. The world seemed much more in order back these days. Now? Now it's all just chaos, tossing you back and forth.

The world has become a storm, a storm short before winter comes and makes solid ice out of the waves.

“Did you swim further than the bay, then?”

“Numerous times. If only to prove that I could," Jaime chuckles. He always took it for a challenge. He wanted to prove that he was the best swimmer. The best in everything. He wanted to impress.

How empty those things feel now, but back in the day? They seemed to be all that matters. Glory and songs. Praise and success.

“I always found something strangely peaceful in it. One's muscles aching to the point that one's limbs are already numb again. There is nothing but the wind and the sound of the waves. It’s as though you can hear the world breathing for a moment.”

Jaime can’t help the small amused frown. To hear her talking in such a voice – and then talking about peace and the strange tranquility of the sea… it’s such a strange thing. After all, Brienne seems to be a woman of war, at least that is what he took her for. Ready to fight whoever dares to come too close. And by the rights of it, she’d likely beat them all. He's fought her - and while she was most definitely not beating him, she did the job outright wearing him down.

Yet, here she sits, and suddenly the tall wench seems as small as a girl of six-and-ten at best, talking about peace and home as though it was a faint dream, a solemn ballad of longing.

This world has gone insane – and the people along with it. That is the only rational explanation Jaime can fathom. But Jaime’s mind keeps drifting away from those thoughts – only to linger on the image now inside his head, of glancing out onto the sea.

Blue waters, like sapphires, letting out the world’s breath.

And for a moment, he believes he can understand her longing for that tranquility, for that moment where the world itself seems numb.

“… You know, the good thing about being a wild child is that you develop a very close connection to nature surrounding you. You get to know it, inside-out,” Brienne mutters, her broad mouth almost entirely buried in the rough fabric of her tunic, suddenly looking a bit more like the woman he remembers from their first encounter, so young, but so much more fragile than he remembers her to. Where there used to be steel, there suddenly seems to be nothing but milky, broken glass.  

“What do you mean?” Jaime asks, blinking repeatedly. Did they ride that hard or why does he feel so tired now?

“I always was outside as a child, I told you. Treaded through meadows and creeks, up the hills, down the valleys, through the woods, dust, mud, puddles, through the rain, through the snow, blazing sun, and hail… Swam as far as I could, dove even deeper to the point that my lungs hurt, in search of some sea shells or mystical creatures living in the deep waters… You learn the names of the animals, the sounds of their steps, the sound their hooves and paws make on dry leaves and moist grass. You learn the smells and textures of moss and stone, tree bark after the rain… you learn the names of the plants. You learn which ones are good and which ones are bad. You learn which ones you can eat, and which ones make you sleep forever. You learn them all. You suddenly see not only a grey mass of plenty, but all plants and animals in particular,” she goes on, the worlds dribbling out of her broad mouth, hushed, soothing, way too soothing.

“What are… what’s…,” Jaime mutters, breathing harder at the realization that his body is no longer moving of its own, the world growing dimmer by the edges. His eyes fall back on Brienne’s sapphire blue ones, as she looks at him with a blank expression, “I guess you feel slightly drowsy by now, and I reckon that your limbs feel heavy to the point that you can’t move them anymore.”

“What…,” he breathes, becoming more and more conscious of the words she speaks and how his body is like a wet sack of flour.

“Back on Tarth, we had a name for it. Faintwhisper. Because once you consume it, the world grows fainter and fainter until it’s no more than a whisper in your ear. The world just fades away,” Brienne whispers.

“What did you do?” Jaime swallows thickly, his voice shaking as he strains to stay awake.

And he thought he could trust her. Jaime thought that he could trust this one woman, this one person of all people in the world, but he is seemingly yet again absolutely and utterly wrong.

“I mixed the herb it into the broth when you weren’t looking. It tastes sweet… as far as I know…,” Brienne shrugs.

“What… are you up to?” he manages to bring out, black flickering before his eyes like a ghost of the former days. She only smiles at him sadly, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears, though her voice is so soothingly small and calm that Jaime’s mind drifts further and further away with every word she speaks, “Breaking some oaths… You said it once, Ser, we swear too much, so I have to neglect some in favor of the other.”

“Brienne…,” he tries to say with strength in his voice, but it’s no more than a whisper. He wants to scream. He knows that expression – and it means no good.

“You’ll only sleep. It just makes you sleep. And once you wake up, I’ll be gone again,” she mutters, as though it was a comfort.

“Why?” he breathes, struggling to stay awake.

_Don’t fall asleep, don’t fall asleep._

“To get young Podrick Payne and Ser Hyle out of the mess I led them into, in search of Lady Sansa. To get them away from Lady Stoneheart… who used to be Lady Catelyn,” Brienne says, her face suddenly a sad, pained grimace.

“What?!” he manages to say louder.

Lady Stoneheart… Catelyn? What? What is that supposed to mean?

Catelyn is dead!

And that ominous Lady Stoneheart was more of a rumor at best.

What is all this?!

“I don’t know how, but she was raised from the dead, or well, her body was… because this isn’t my Lady Catelyn. This is… something else, wearing her skin. But she has her memories, and all the bad of her. And she’s demanded from me to deliver you to her, to kill you, the Kingslayer, because she thinks you are responsible for what happened to her and her son during that wedding… I tried to make her understand. I tried to tell her about you, about your change… but she didn’t care. She said that I either kill you, or I’d die for you…,” Brienne says, her voice so faint that Jaime can hardly hear it, though ever word burns in his numbing body like wildfire. “I hanged by the willow, saying my prayers.”

“Brienne,” Jaime tries, he tries to move, if only just a hand, but his body is limp.

_Gods no._

“But I couldn’t do this to Podrick… or Ser Hyle. I… I thought I could, I thought I… I couldn’t let them die, I couldn’t just see Pod dangling from that willow, so I shouted out. ‘Sword’ I shouted. I said I’d kill you. So they cut us down and sent me to lure you out of the camp and kill you with… with Oathkeeper, making it Oathbreaker in the process. They sent a guard with me who was to escort me to here… I killed him short before I rode up to your camp… right here… his body’s still behind that mound. That was the sweet smell you noted once we reached this place. No animal cadaver, a human body, though. I knew by then that there were spies in your camp, so I had to get you out of there first… so it’d be best if you stayed here, or proceeded further into the woods, someplace away. You aren’t safe there. No one is. They are everywhere, for all I know…,” Brienne explains.

He is at least to know the truth. Ser Jaime deserves that much.

He deserves the truth.

Because the truth is all she can give him, however meager that may be.

“Brienne, don’t do that,” he tells her, his voice faint and strained as his mind succumbs more and more to the darkness.

“It’s long since decided on. That’s the only way to keep you safe and… to have a chance to keep young Podrick and Ser Hyle safe, too,” Brienne shakes her head. “She may make me break my oaths, but I won’t deliver you to her. I can’t. I simply can’t.”

Lady Stoneheart may break her, but she won’t succeed to make Brienne break these fragile vows on tops.

“Don’t go there… all alone,” he breathes, his mind drifting back and forth like crushing waves.

_Foolish woman! Let me come with! Why do you think you have to fight her all alone?_

_Why didn’t you let me take some men to take her out?_

_Stubborn, stupid wench!_

_You mustn’t do that or you’ll get yourself killed!_

“It is _my_ mission, though. It's the quest you gave me, Ser. I am… responsible, not you. I may have failed you time and time again, Ser, but this one oath I shall try my best to keep,” Brienne says with anguish in her voice, clouding her brightly shining eyes to the point that it seems as though someone blew the candles out inside her head.

And truly, that is about as shocking as are the revelations that she just unfolded in front of him.

The eyes that seemed to hold the world - now clouded, dark, dim.

“Stay,” Jaime begs.

_Don’t go or you’ll die, don’t you understand, wench?!_

_You will die if you fight her all alone, you fool!_

“I’ll go, and you’ll stay, well, hopefully,” Brienne shrugs. “I would like to see to it that you’re safe here for certain, but… I have responsibility for both Ser Hyle and Podrick, too. I have to get them out, or else this here would be for nothing. And it can’t be all for nothing. It has to be worth something. Anything.”

“Brienne,” he breathes, his eyelids fluttering.

He knows what this means.

_Stupid, stupid wench!_

_Don’t choose the hero’s death, you foolish woman._

To make her death worth something.

_Don't go._

_Please, Brienne._

_Please._

“I’m sorry that you get dragged into all of this… you truly don’t deserve it, Ser, for you have nothing to do with what Lady Stoneheart accuses you of,” Brienne says. "And I shall do my best to guarantee that no harm is done to you for crimes you did not commit. However much that's worth."

She failed often enough to know that this may be more of an empty promise, but then again... isn't it that empty promise that keeps her going now?

“Please,” he mutters.

_Don’t do this._

_Don’t do this._

_Don’t._

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, the air catching in her throat.

She thought it would be easier. She hoped he would just slip into darkness without asking questions.

_Please, try to understand._

“Brienne,” Jaime brings out.

“I really am,” she goes on, not listening to him, not hearing him.

_Don't let the words reach you, or else you won't ever follow through with it. And you must._

“Brie….,” Jaime whispers, all strength leaving him.

“Just let it happen. You don’t have to fight it, it comes anyway…,” Brienne says, not just bidding him good sleep, but farewell already.

“Goodbye, Ser Jaime,” she then says, her voice barely carrying over to him.

“Brie….,” Jaime mutters before the light fades away before his eyes and darkness comes in its stead.

And all he can hear is the breath of the world.

Fading into darkness.


	2. The Cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne reaches the hideout of the Brotherhood without Banners, ready to make her choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking aorund an for the kudos and nice comments. 
> 
> I hope you'll like this chapter. ;)

Brienne claps spurs to her horse as she approaches the way too familiar path leading up to the cave where everything took a turn for wrong.

Where things rose that should have stayed in the ground or the water. And where things fell from the sky that she hoped would keep up in the air forever, out of people’s reach to touch and corrupt.

It might be the aftermath of the fever or the wounds still bothering her, but Brienne’s stomach feels tight to the point that she could retch yet again. As she did no ten miles further down the road.

Brienne just hopes that Ser Jaime is alright. She made sure of it that he was secure in the crevice in the stone where they had made camp, but one can never know. If she had known, she would have turned another way to spare them all the pains they suffer from.

In the end, all she can do is trying to keep people alive.

Survival is the only thing that matters at this point.

 _Just live_ , she thinks to herself bitterly. _Live, Ser Jaime._

“Now look who’s back.”

Brienne whips her head around to find the man who’s taken up the Hound’s helmet standing a few feet away from her.

“Took you long enough.”

Brienne says nothing, just looks at him sternly. 

“Where is your guard?”

“Not here. I will discuss matters with Lady Stoneheart, if you allowed. It’s urgent, as you know.”

He gives her an uneasy grimace, but doesn’t seem to make objections to her demand.

“Then we shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

He nods at what is in her back. Brienne swallows thickly, but then gives a nod as well. Lem spurs his horse, riding ahead while Brienne follows him wordlessly. Eventually they reach the cave, dipped in the onyx of the approaching night. She had to wait for darkness to come and obscure the view, or else it would have been even harder to what she is about to do. 

Brienne is surprised to find almost all of the Brotherhood assembled, as though they all awaited her return. Even Lady Stoneheart, pale face and hollow eyes, glances down on her as she approaches. Brienne can hear some soft murmurs, but pays no attention to them. Her eyes are trained on the thing that is now Lady Catelyn, or rather, once _was_ Lady Catelyn.

_This is not my Lady Catelyn. Never._

Once the horse won’t go any further because the climb is too steep, Brienne unsaddles in one quick motion. Her legs shake under the impact and she has to try her best not just fall over, but she doesn’t let it reach her face.

_Don’t let them see._

_Or else you give away your game._

And it is no game. Not anymore. 

No senseless melee where no one’s severely hurt, no matter how hard she swings _._

Melees may prepare you to fight in battle, but they teach you nothing about fighting the struggle of life and death. They only teach you the game, not the price. And foolishly, Brienne had believed for a long time that knowing that particular game would keep her from having to pay the price.

 _Stupid_.

Brienne sets her jaw in a straight line as she wordlessly moves to the back of the horse, one hand deftly holding on to stretch of white, soiled cloth.

He said he'd soil it soon enough, but as it appears now, she was the one to soil it.

_Please, forgive me._

“M’lady Stoneheart!” she calls out, her voice gladly not betraying her for once. “I bring you the Kingslayer.”

She steps aside to reveal the body on the back of the horse, wrapped in the white cloak. The murmurs rise like a wave as the news travel all the way to the hungry mouth of the cave.

Brienne observes the lady cloaked in gray and vengeance as she says something in this strange language she cannot understand. Gestures are passed back and forth until the red priest who tended to her wounds walks down to her.

Brienne blinks, but then does quick work on the ropes, putting down the body on the stony ground.

The red priest approaches with steady strides until he is next to her.

“… You may have a look at him yourself,” she murmurs, the words catching in her throat.

“That is what I am to do,” Thoros replies as he bends down to examine the body. Brienne tries her best to keep her face hard as stone as she can see Thoros pushing soiled fabric away from the tall frame.

As though he was unwrapping a gruesome present. But isn’t that exactly what it is to Lady Stoneheart? A present? A gift? 

_And what does that make me in turn_ , she wonders?

“What happened to his face?” Lem suddenly calls out, glancing down at the dead body in front of them, limp in Thoros hands as he goes on examining. “His head is _mush_.”

“A _fight_ happened? What did you expect to happen?” Brienne replies, her eyes narrow slits.

And that is indeed the truth. The man they had sent with her put up more than just a fight. One uneasy fellow he was, mocking her again and again about how he had seen her dangling from the willow and how she had deserved it.

“Kingslayer’s Whore”, he had kept saying, so often that the words still echo fresh in her mind.

After they had made camp for the night, he had made the mistake not to tie her to a tree, but only left her tied up, believing that she wouldn’t be able to do much with hands and feet bound - and the wounds weakening her. Truth be told, it took her almost all of her energy to struggle out of them, and she can still feel the fresh burns of the ropes that had cut deep into her wrists and ankles, but it has never been impossible for her to perform that, even in the state she was in by the time. 

What made her snap was the moment he said that maybe she should become _his_ whore instead, believing she could not resist, bound up and weak from the wounds, though it is still beyond her how a man seems to find something appealing enough in her to try his luck against the odds of her now even worse looks. He already had the hand on her hip to push her down when Brienne knocked her head against him to throw him off, rolled atop of him and just smashed that bloody stone she had found in the dry leaves to bring down on his face until it disappeared behind blood and flesh.

Brienne had felt so numb after that, she didn’t even feel the throbbing pain in her head.

And so she had dragged the man’s body behind that stone boulder, covered him up with whatever material she could find, as the vile yet necessary plan formed inside her head and the droplets of blood dried on her face, creating new yet bloody freckles on her skin until she washed them off when next morning came, before she set forth to find Ser Jaime’s camp.

“That you just stab him in the back and be done?” Lem snorts.

“Have you battled Jaime Lannister? He’s not that easy to fool… or well, _was_ ,” Brienne tells him.

 _Ser Jaime would have beaten all of them before he lost his hand_ , Brienne thinks to herself. _Even malnourished and in chains he would have beaten them all. One by one._

“Where is the guard we’ve sent with you?” Lem asks once more. “You still owe me an answer for that, woman.”

“He’s dead, too,” Brienne replies. “And I owe you nothing.”

“Where’s his body?” Lem questions, ignoring the harshness in her voice.

“Decaying somewhere close to the Lannister camps. Ser Jaime’s slain him before I killed him,” Brienne says.

She practiced those words a hundred times at least as she rode to the camp and now back to the cave.

“Ser Jaime’s slain him before I killed him”.

“I bring you the Kingslayer”.

Again and again until she almost brought herself to believe them, if not for the images scourged into her mind of killing the man the same way the cut-off heads still haunt her when she closes her eyes.

“And why didn’t you bring him with?”

“Was I supposed to be travelling two bodies?” Brienne retorts. “One was tough enough. His horse ran off before I even got a chance to catch it. What’s the use of bringing the body here? I buried him the way he deserved it.”

“But his face, woman, why his face? I still don’t get that,” Lem shakes his head, gesturing at the mush which used to be a face, a head, a human being, however vile he may have been.

“I already said it, it was a bloody fight. I had to use a stone at some point because he’s managed to take the sword from me. With my broken arm, it's not that easy, you might be able to gather,” Brienne tells him, her voice shaking in cold anger.

 _Cold_.

She just feels cold.

“So you smashed his face with a stone?”

“And then I shoved the sword through his back, yes,” Brienne hisses.

Like Ser Jaime did with King Aerys.

Just that in her case, there was nothing noble to the act.

“Is that Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, Thoros?” Lem asks, turning to the red priest, who took his time examining the body while the two talked.

Brienne keeps her eyes fixed on Lady Stoneheart and her companions. Thoros looks at the man’s hair, then the golden hand, sprinkled with tiny droplets of blood.

 _It shined so brightly_ , Brienne reminds herself. She’d never seen him shining as much as he did when she first saw Ser Jaime having donned the White again. It became him, truly.

She tries to control her breathing as his fingers pass over the stump. Brienne did her best to fashion the body so that it would pass for Ser Jaime’s. She cut the dead man’s hair to the same length… and however macabre a task it was,she cut off his hand and sewed it so that it looked like Ser Jaime’s stump. She hoped that they would be done with looking at the golden hand, though. The red priest looks at this for way too long.

 _He knows_ , she thinks to herself, fright rising in her flat chest. _He knows and he will tell._

Her Septa was probably right.

She is a stupid thing. A slow child.

_Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

“Well?” Lem grimaces, waiting for an answer.

“Well, his face is beyond unrecognizable, but from what we can see, he’s got a missing hand that’s been cut off. Height fits, color of the skin, too. Stature seems to be the same. I’d say it’s him,” Thoros says, straightening back up.

“This is the Kingslayer, you have my word for it,” Brienne declares.

“The Lady says that this is not what she’s asked of you,” the man speaking for Lady Stoneheart calls out. Brienne can barely make out her face anymore as the world seems to grow darker with every second passing, only the flickering orange light of the torches licking across her pale face every once in a while.

“You wanted me to kill him and that is what I did,” Brienne argues. “You commanded me to kill him and make this sword he gave me Oathbreaker. And that is what I did, m’lady.”

She is an Oathbreaker now.

“Without anyone there to testify for you,” Lem huffs.

“She didn’t ask me to bring him alive, she asked me to kill him, and that is what I did, and for that I demand that you fulfill your part of the contract, m’lady,” Brienne goes on, ignoring the man.

Her business is with the woman hiding in the shadows, not the man hiding behind a Hound’s helmet.

“You are quite confident for someone who’s in no position to.”

“I did what you bid of me, m’lady. I ask you to do what you offered me in turn,” Brienne says. “You told me to choose and I chose.”

_And I choose life, even if you may never know of that choice. Not my own, but life nonetheless._

“Sword” she had yelled, Brienne remembers.

_Always the sword._

“It’s not the original deal, and you know it. We have no certainty that this is him,” Lem argues.

“If this wasn’t him, then why would I return?” Brienne snaps. “It’d be foolish of me, don’t you agree?”

A fool’s plan, but perhaps foolish enough to fool them in turn.

“Because you want the other two out, easy as that.”

“I am here now and I tell you that this is the Kingslayer, on my honor,” Brienne insists.

“For which you cannot bring any guarantees,” Lem argues. “And what honor do you have?”

 _None_ , Brienne reminds herself.

Woman without honor.

“Which is why I offer my services to you as a security, m’lady Stoneheart,” Brienne speaks up louder again as she steps closer to the woman looking down on her as though she was a demon.

“Your _services_?” Lem grimaces.

“I give you my life. That is my ultimate service I can offer to you. That is my vow to you. It has always been, m’lady. My life for yours,” Brienne says. “I swore it by the Old Gods and the New.”

“You want to serve the Brotherhood?”

“I don't serve the Brotherhood. I serve those I vowed to. And my vow to Lady Catelyn was to give my life for her if I must. M’lady said that I betrayed her. And it seems that she has the rights of it. Therefore I deserve punishment. I brought you the Kingslayer as you commanded me. But there is nothing beyond this that I can do to be to your aid, m’lady. All I can give you is my life as a pledge that it’s the truth I am speaking. So take my life as my pledge – so young Podrick and Ser Hyle may take their leave. You will see those punished who deserve it. The Kingslayer is dead. And I am ready to follow.”

“You mean you want to die,” Thoros says with a frown.

“I don’t want to live in this world anymore, so if that is what hinders her, give her the security that I will die for it that Ser Hyle and Podrick get out of this alive, "Brienne says, her voice resolute, but then she drifts back to the lady cloaked in gray. "Promise me that, and my life shall be yours, too. I will pay the debt I owe you, with his life and with mine."

 _It’s for the best_ , she reminds herself. _It’s the only way._

“… She says she agrees,” the man speaking for her calls out after a long moment. Brienne can feel the woman’s eyes on her this whole time, even though they disappear in the darkness again and again, only flickering up every once the wind picks up to make the torches spark up higher.

“Then bring them forth and let them go,” Thoros says. Some of the men under the Brotherhood’s command rush off. Brienne tries her best not let out a sigh of relief.

 _Not until you know for certain_ , she scolds herself. She looks back at the priest, and if she is not mistaken, there is a hint of pity in his mimic, but Brienne is no good reading people, and what does it matter if he pities her or not.

Pity doesn’t get her anywhere.

And neither does mercy.

For there is none left in this world where young boys hang for the failures of foolish women.

Or where knights are supposed to pay the price for an atrocity he did not commit.

“M’lady, m’lady ser!?” she can hear the voice of young Podrick. Brienne whips her head around to see the two getting escorted down the cave. Brienne swallows thickly.

At least no more harm was done to them. The wounds are starting to heal, and they were fashioned with bandages as far as she can judge. Just like the bruises seem to fade to shades of green and yellow already.

“What is the matter here?” Hyle asks, struggling against the man’s grip who is escorting him to her.

“It’s alright,” Brienne tells him in a calming voice. 

“Is that…,” he looks down at the body still on the stony ground.

“The Kingslayer, yes,” Brienne confirms quickly. “Which is why you will be released now.”

“Released?” Podrick looks at her, frightened somewhat. If Brienne were any good with children, she would probably hold him close now, but she can’t. She has to stay strong. She can’t linger. She has to move forward and away.

_I will not stay here._

“I suggest he can take your horse, then,” Lem says with a dark grin.

“What is going on here?” she can hear Hyle question, but instead of offering an explanation, she takes the reigns of her horse to stuff into his big hands, talking in a hushed voice, “Ser Hyle, I need you to ride as fast as you can, to take yourself and young Podrick someplace safe. Don’t look back, don’t let them get you a second time. Beyond this point, I can no longer guarantee your safety. You must seize this one change you got - and not look back.”

“What will become of you?” he asks, aghast. 

“ _Quiet_ now. That is not of your concern. Just see to it that you two get some place safe,” Brienne tell shim, looking him deep in the eye.

“And you are…,” he grimaces, and Brienne nods resolutely, “I’m sure.”

“M’lady ser?” Podrick looks at her again, his eyes wide.

“You will go with Ser Hyle – and not play hero, you hear me?” Brienne tells him, bending slightly down. She means to extend her hand to him, but then pulls away again, her fingers suddenly cramping. 

_Let it go_ , she mentally scolds herself. _You won’t hold it for much longer anyways._

_Let it all go._

“But what will become of you?” the lad asks, the worry apparent in his voice.

And while Brienne knows it's ungracious to even think it, she finds a small comfort that maybe someone will miss her slightly after all.

“We’ll see,” she grimaces, but the straightens back up to search Hyle’s eyes. “Ser Hyle. I leave him into your care.”

“I owe you,” Ser Hyle says with a sad grimace.

“You don’t. Just make sure Podrick gets somewhere safe. That’s all I’m asking of you,” Brienne says, her voice almost betraying her. "... and perchance inform my Father once it's safe for you... He should... know the truth."

No, he doesn’t owe her much of anything.

And this deed is perhaps the only token she can offer to repay him for what she put him through.

The Elder Brother may have had the rights of it, telling her to go home while she still could. But at least the story Ser Hyle will likely tell her Father will have at least that one speckle of light in it - that she died trying to keep others alive. That her death wasn't entirely pointless, and not just a wound suffered in a melee, but for a true purpose, and not just some girlish dreams about knighthood as she knows it from the songs.

“I will, m'lady, you have my word for it,” he assures her. And Brienne is glad for it that he doesn’t try to play hero now, or insist on the point.

 _He understood_ , she comforts herself. He understood and will do as she bid him.

They’ll be safe.

Everyone will be safe.

That is all that matters now.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry for all of it. Now go,” Brienne urges him.

Better have them go before someone may realize the massive cracks she knows are in her story. If they are far enough away, then the Brotherhood will likely lose interest in searching for them.

“M’lady ser, please. You must come with us!” Podrick insists.

“I cannot. I have oaths to fulfill. Go with Ser Hyle. Don’t look back, you hear me?” Brienne tells him, before searching Hyle’s eyes another time. He gives a small nod, “C’mon, then, boy. We should be on our way. The lady has spoken.”

Ser Hyle simply picks him up to seat on the horse, then, before climbing atop the animal himself, fastening the reigns about his wrists.

“M’lady Stoneheart. I have your word for it that they shall have safe leave?” Brienne calls out to the shadow hiding in the shadows. After some strange murmurs, she can hear the man speaking for her raising his voice again, “She says no harm will be done to them for as long as you fulfill your vow.”

“Then it shall be so.”

She nods at Hyle, who spurs the horse despite the boy’s protests. Brienne tries her best to keep her body from shaking, but it’s no use.

She watches as the two disappear into the nearby woods.

 _Ride as far and as fast as you can_ , she thinks to herself, but then turns back around to face the cave, which already seems to have opened its angry mouth to swallow her in one bite entire.

“You are supposed to come closer, the Lady says.”

Brienne nods before making her way up to the cave’s mouth, her steps growing more and more uneven, more and more uncertain. The heat of the torches licks at her skin, causing a burning sensation even through the thick bandage covering her marred cheek, where the flesh is still soft and sensitive to every touch, even that of fire.

“So, do I get to chop your ugly head off?” she can hear Lem call out with spiteful glee.

But she ignores him. Her eyes are trained on the darkness containing the body of the woman she once served.

“I demand from you that I get to choose my death, m’lady,” Brienne speaks up boldly.

“You make a lot of demands, truly,” Lem huffs.

“I just ask to die in a proper way, and not at the filthy hands of people like you,” Brienne snaps.

“Careful now,” Lem warns her, touching his sword.

“What do I have to lose?” Brienne says bitterly. “My life?”

“Then what? I thought you wanted the hero’s death, running around in mail and armor,” Lem snorts.

“I don’t deserve a merciful quick death for the crimes I have committed, but I’d still ask to leave this life in a rather painless way that saves me some last dignity,” Brienne says, turning her attention back to Lady Stoneheart whose eyes she can feel darting through the darkness, piercing her skin.

“And what do you desire, then?” the man speaking for her questions after some murmurs come out of the darkness yet again.

“I demand to be given over to the waters,” Brienne says.

“You want to be drowned,” Thoros makes a face upon hearing that.

“I come from an island. On Tarth, we are given over to the seas once we die. That is what I want to die like, if I don’t get to die in battle, a fair battle. And since I won’t get a fair battle here, I want to return to the water, where we come from and all go back to,” Brienne says, but then turns to Lady Stoneheart again, even if she can’t make her out in the darkness. “Like you came from it, m’lady, and returned to it, and rose again.”

“… She says it shall be so,” her spokesman confirms.

“And I want him to do it,” Brienne says, gesturing at the red priest.

“Why Thoros?” Lem demands, narrowing his eyes at her.

“I said it, I don’t want to die at the hands of filthy men like you. He seems honorable enough. Let him drown me, that’s all I’m asking for. Give me maybe no honorable death, for I am not deserving of it, but at least one that won’t put me more to shame than does all of this, against anything you’ve vowed me,” Brienne says, her voice gladly not betraying her despite the fact that her knees are shaking.

“She vowed _you_ , Oathbreaker?” Lem snorts, the word echoing through the cave.

Oathbreaker.

Oathbreaker.

Oathbreaker.

“We both promised something that day, m’lady. I promised to be at your service. You promised me that you’d never force me into actions that would bring me disgrace. This _is_ disgrace, so I think it’s just proper that I get to die no dishonorable death,” Brienne says to the face hiding in the darkness.

“… She says that she will grant it to you,” the man speaking for her says eventually.

“Thank you… m’lady…,” Brienne replies slowly.

She gets what she wants.

And probably what she deserves.

_Then why am I still afraid?_

“At dawn you shall be swept out of this life, she says.”

“I accept.”

“Then it shall be so.”


	3. Drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne gets a visitor.

Brienne glances up at the stony ceiling of the cave, lying on her back. She was brought to one of the cellars, if you will, until the next morning rises.

 _My last one_ , she reminds herself, a shiver running up and down her spine.

At some point Brienne reckons that perhaps she could have come up with a better plan, had she tried harder. Ser Jaime surely wouldn’t have been fooled the way she allowed herself to be fooled and misguided.

But what aches her perhaps even more than her own foolery is that she will break her oath to Lady Catelyn no matter what will follow once the sun rises again. She won’t find Lady Sansa. Or Arya. Her vow to Lady Stoneheart is what will keep her from fulfilling her vow to Lady Catelyn. Lady Stoneheart will succeed in having her die as what she is, an Oathbreaker.

She will break her vow to Ser Jaime, too, of restoring his honor. And at the mere thought, Brienne’s muscles contract to the point that she wants to scream at the cold burning agony.

Just how many people did she fail in life? Her father, for not being the daughter he deserved. Renly, for failing to protect him. Lady Catelyn, for the very same reason. Podrick. Hyle. Sansa. Arya.

And Ser Jaime.

Brienne wraps her arm tighter around herself, even though it hurts her, but then again, she finds something soothing in that pain.

_I deserve it._

Brienne whips her head around as she hears footsteps echoing through the narrow paths of stone, until a torch flickers at the entrance, momentarily blinding her. Brienne sits up, only to see the red priest approaching with a crooked smile.

“The last time I came in here to see you, I was sure you wanted to kill me,” he says.

“I was a prisoner back then,” Brienne says in a hushed voice.

“And what are you now?”

 _Free_ , Brienne thinks to herself. _However painful that freedom may be._

Thoros walks over to her before settling down in front of her.  

“You should eat something,” he says, unwrapping a small bundle with bread in it.

“There is no need for it now, is there?” Brienne argues. “You know what is to come.”

Why waste food on someone who won’t witness the day after tomorrow?

“Even those sentenced to death deserve a last meal, however meager it may be,” Thoros argues, holding out a piece of bread to her. “Come on now and eat with me. I rather eat in company. The others are too busy getting drunk on their odd sense of success these days.”

Brienne hesitantly takes the chunk of bread from him to bite off some, swallowing thickly. Her mouth is too dry from the fright boiling deep inside of her, boiling cold.

“They are having a feast because of the Kingslayer, you know,” he goes on, taking a bite of bread as well.

Brienne sucks her thick lip into her mouth, feeling the breadcrumbs on her skin like small stones poking at it.

A feast to celebrate Ser Jaime’s death? She knows what they think of him, but is that truly what self-proclaimed executors of justice do? Give a feast for a man brutally murdered?

She pricks her ears once she hears music in the distance.

“If they play the _Rains of Castamere_ next, I think they have truly gone insane. Every single one of them,” Thoros shakes his head. “Some merry tales and songs they’ll have to sing about us once it’s time. Of the men who let ladies do their deeds, and celebrate with a feast what was either not theirs to carry out, or should have been up to them all the same. But then again, what does it matter? Honor won’t be found here. And honor is all but fleeting. All I know is that if _that_ is what the Lord of Light wants to see, he has an odd sense of justice, even odder than the one we once dreamed about in the beginning of my service for the Brotherhood. Or perhaps that’s just his sense of humor, who knows?”

Brienne grimaces.

 _He is probably right_ , she thinks to herself bitterly. _And that is what I fought for, all this time. For nothing and nothing again. Honor and honor. All but fleeting things, flitting away, up in the air, and then gone._

“Here, have some wine with the bread to wash it down,” Thoros says, holding out a skin to her. “It’s rather dry after all.”

“I don’t…,” she means to object, but he presses the skin in her big palm, “If not tonight, I don’t know what other occasion would be proper to have a drink, m’lady. If I were you, I’d get so drunk that I’d die before they could drown me.”

Brienne gives a weary smile before taking a sip. Maybe he is right after all – and she should have chosen death by drink?

“Some devil must possess you to have asked that of her,” he shakes his head, scolding. “To be drowned.”

Brienne shrugs her broad shoulders. She rather dies at the hands of the sea than those of evil men who have no idea what honor is. She just hopes that the same peace she found back on her small boat, with Tarth but as a brown stretch at the horizon, will be granted to her once the water has consumed her. However selfish that demand may be, for she knows she is not deserving of that peace.

“You know it was not smart to make the one man drown you who might have any interest in your survival,” Thoros goes on, his voice quieter.

“I have no intention to survive,” Brienne argues, blinking at him. She reckoned as much that he was not her enemy, but this? No, no.

“What? Isn’t that your secret plan?” Thoros argues. “That you can be saved by the waters?”

“My _plan_ is to die, for Ser Hyle and Podrick, for a good cause. Their safety is what matters,” Brienne explains.

She doesn’t cheat.

She is too dumb for it, she knows.

Brienne may have cheated when it came to Ser Jaime, but past this point… the lies weigh too heavy on her.

“And what of the Kingslayer?” he questions.

“He’s dead,” Brienne grimaces.

“Fool yourself, child, but not me,” Thoros argues. “I know a freshly sewn wound when I see it.”

Brienne blinks, her muscles tensing. She already thought that he had lingered over the man's body for too long, but had consoled herself with the hope that perchance he couldn’t make it out in the dark – that this was indeed not Ser Jaime.

“Why didn’t you say anything, then?” Brienne asks, her voice no more than a whisper.

Why didn’t he give away her game?

“I told you, didn’t I?” Thoros argues.

Brienne grimaces, calling his words to her to mind. About how it matters how a man ends…

“So?” he goes on. “What became of him, if not the burial the ones out there celebrate with wine and excess?”

Brienne contemplates. What sense is there from concealing the truth he already seems to know?

“Have no worry, you could scream it loud and they wouldn’t hear it over their laughter and booming music,” Thoros assures her. “This is between you and I. Have no fear. Had I intention to uncover you, I would have done it back when I examined the body. I’m just curious to know.”

“… I left him some other place. I knocked him out with some herb… He hopefully won’t find us here… and from there… well, I hope he’s smart enough not to come looking for me… and just disappears from the Riverlands entire… away from her… from _them_ …,” Brienne mutters.

He won’t come looking for her, she is sure of it. She betrayed him. He will hate her for it, and it’s better like that. You don’t come looking for the people you despise. And for as long as Ser Jaime doesn’t come looking for her, he is safe.

_He will be safe._

“You think he’ll run away?”

“No, but now he’s cautious. Now he knows the dangers… That means he can watch out for himself better. He doesn’t need me as his protector after all,” Brienne argues. “I reckon I have proven often enough that I am far from capable of it.”

“Then what is this to you? Aren’t you protecting him right at this second?” Thoros argues. “Because I’m most certain that not many would go as far as you do to know someone else safe.”

“I failed to protect him, but maybe I manage to spare him this here,” Brienne shrugs.

“So… you are ready,” Thoros grimaces.

“Yes,” Brienne nods.

“Does that mean you’ve given up?” Thoros huffs. “I thought there was more of a fight in you. You know it, I have tended to you as you had your fever. Back then, I wasn’t sure if you were to pull through, yet you did. It seemed to me that you were not yet ready to die, and even if death meant to tell you that it was your time, you’d challenge the Lord of Light to duel if you must, or so I thought. Was I wrong with that?”

“Probably not,” Brienne says with a weary, sad smile. “Back then, I was all out for fight, but now… I don’t think I have the means anymore.”

“Why? You have a body and a mind. What else does it take? That sword with Lannister gold? Or some other material thing? Courage? You have enough of that, speaking to the Lady Stoneheart as boldly as you did, and swifter in your lie than I gave you credit for. Or is it still the honor?”

“No, not honor.”

_That is over._

“Then what, child?”

“I tried and failed, numerous times. Perchance there is still might in my body, but… but for what? What is there for me left in this world?”

“Life.”

“My life means nothing to me.”

“That’s one sad admission,” Thoros grimaces, taking a swig of the wine, before handing the skin back to Brienne, who also gulps down some of the liquid.

“I always wanted to dedicate my life to a greater cause but my own. I thought Renly’s mission was such a thing. But then he was killed with dark magic, by a shadow wearing the face of Stannis Baratheon. And I failed to protect him from it. Then I thought my purpose was Lady Catelyn’s protection. And then to find her daughters and return them to her. And then…,” she stops.

And then Ser Jaime.

“I tried to find a purpose time and time again, but I found none. So what is there for me?”

Thoros looks at her, knitting his eyebrows, his expression sad.

“I don’t know what would be left for me in a world where such things happen, where I let such things happen. I swore to protect, that’s all I ever wanted to do. Protect. Serve. Live up to my oaths. And here I am… What is in this world for me, still? Ugly thing I am. A thing that just doesn’t belong… a woman who looks like a man, but still seems to have a woman’s heart, a fragile thing that breaks too easily… who never made her father proud… or anyone else for the matter,” Brienne says, the words suddenly bubbling out of her.

Maybe that is her last chance to confess her sins and fears. Even if it’s a red priest whom she barely knows.

“I thought my lady dead, and now she’s back and she is no more than a shadow of the Lady Catelyn I knew. The one who was kind and full of love for her children. I broke my oaths to her, or so it seems... I didn’t keep her safe. _That_ is what I know for certain. I almost had young Podrick killed, and Ser Hyle, out of selfish reasons. For _my_ mission, my quest for a purpose. At first, I didn’t protect them. I didn’t shout. I let them hang by the willow for my sake. And my sake is not worth it, I know that."

She lets out a weary sigh.

"I won’t kill Stannis… after I promised to my dear King Renly that I would avenge him… I didn’t protect Renly… after he fastened the Rainbow Cloak about my shoulders… I won’t ever see Renly’s face again, not his real one, and not just a ghost haunting a young blacksmith’s face… And now that I know what it means to bring back the dead, I would no longer wish to see Renly in the flesh ever again. For it all decays, as I see with her, the thing that used to by my lady decayed on the inside… Arya might be dead, too, _is_ likely dead, too… I won’t find Sansa… I won’t restore Ser Jaime’s honor… And Lady Stoneheart? She corrupts herself with every ragged breath she takes… So what’s the point? What is in this world for me, still? Other than a death to a good cause? A gentle death? And the certainty that the ones I want to live… will be alive?”

“No one will know you dead,” he warns her. “No one will bury you.”

“And as I had to learn, no one sings songs for the women no matter what they do… especially those who break their oaths… So… what does it matter? Perchance if I was just forgotten about… if the world forgot all about me, then perhaps the mockery won’t follow me, and I can spend eternity… hidden, forgotten, out of sight… at peace,” Brienne says, tears pricking at her eyes.

Out on her boat, glancing at life from a distance, hearing the world breathe.

_One glorious tale, isn’t it, Brienne? That is the one your father will be told. That this is all you ever were. That this is all you’ll ever be. No better than some piece of driftwood._

“I always thought that one wouldn’t find peace with oneself for as long as war was raging, but what do I know? I also believed in this cause. And see where we are now. Celebrating murder and robbing the people we swore to protect. Making ourselves believe that what tastes so sweet on our tongues is not stolen wine but justice. I am perhaps even more of a fool than you seem to be one,” Thoros says, shaking his head. “Though I daresay I have never met one quite like you, Lady Brienne.”

Brienne curls her lips, not knowing what to say. She just tries to contain her tears.

_Be strong._

_You look ugly when you cry and no one is there to comfort you anyways, except for this red priest, who is still more of a Stranger to you._

“While the advice is probably for nothing, just allow me to say this: For that you say you have nothing to lose, since you find no purpose in your life anymore, or so you said, you don’t seem at all too ready for it. Something holds you here, doesn’t it?”

“Just last moments of longing. Life is hard to let go.”

Isn’t she granted even that bit of fright? Brienne always tried to be brave, but in death, even she deserves a bit of cowardice, doesn’t she?

Or is even that asked too much?

“And so it should be. We should bite and claw and fight till our last breath for life. Life’s precious. What happens in our lives is precious and worth protection. Worth glory. Worth feasts…”

“I thought people of your faith believe in salvation in the afterlife, once you are with your Red God.”

“And yet I tried desperately to keep my one friend in this very life, and not the next, pulled him back from the Lord of Light by bringing him back again and again. And I have mourned his death, after he gave his gift of life over to the Lady Stoneheart. The Lord of Light knows that I mourned him. I am no good priest, no good servant of the Lord. I drink. I murder. I lie. And many other things. I told you, m’lady, none of us is without sin. Some of us started off better than others. And some of us far worse. But we are all sinners, this way or another. I am no good servant of the Lord of Light, yet he granted me the chance to keep in life one of the few people I held dear. So the one question that keeps me up at night is not that of when death will finally bring me before the Lord of Light, but if there isn’t something to it.”

“To what?”

“That there is something worthy in _this_ life, the life in this world. We cling on to it so desperately. There must be something worthwhile in it.”

“That is what I am not sure about,” she whispers.

Her life seems so hollowed out, absent of purpose.

It’s not service.

It’s not honor.

Then what is there left for the likes of her?

“And perhaps therein lies your chance, Lady Brienne. That you aren’t sure means you haven’t given up entire. You fear death, don’t you?”

“Naturally,” she shrugs.

“Aye, and so it seems that something in you holds on while the rest of you lets go. And perhaps it is that power, however small it may be, that makes even the most sinful life worth the fight, worth to claw, worth to bite, and hold on till last.”

“… You do forget that all of this will be over by dawn,” Brienne argues. “Perhaps I fear now, but I won’t back down from the promise I have given, fear notwithstanding. I will fulfill that one vow I made. So perchance you are right and _that_ is what I cling on to, but…”

“No, _that_ isn’t what you cling on to, don’t make that mistake in thinking, child,” Thoros shakes his head. “I am talking about something _within_ you. Vows. Promises. All of that lies _outside_ ourselves. I am talking about something that lives deep within us, hidden behind the darkness and the terror, even behind the light.”

“I don't know what there would be.”

Her sense of honor was the one thing she believed was an uplifting trait of hers. That this was something inherently good. And now it seems not so. That means there is nothing. Just nothing.

“Well, perhaps life is all about finding out what that may be. Perchance it’s that purpose we are to give to the Lord of Light once we travel across, and it’s our task to find that purpose, hold it tight, once we have ripped away everything else to reveal that one pure thing that seems to reside in all of us, behind all terror, darkness, and light. What would I know? Probably it’s all just drunken rambling of mine. As I said, I am no proper servant of the Lord of Light – and the night is dark and full of terrors, so maybe I am clinging on to foolish hopes where I should have learned to let go by now. But… well, I dare to see and find out,” Thoros says, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Brienne smiles at him wearily, pulling her knees up to her chest, trying to find solace in his words, though she can’t bring herself to really believe them.

If his words were true, then how comes she feels like someone carved her out from the inside until nothing remained, with a jagged blade?

She said her goodbyes. She may leave vows unfulfilled, but if he has the rights of it that those are things exterior to her, then… there is indeed nothing but her own fear and selfish clutching on to herself that holds Brienne in this very world.

And since she has no faith in the Lord of Light, perhaps the gift she has to present to the Seven is quite another one. Perhaps Brienne should have asked for a Septon to provide those answers.

But it is no matter.

None of it matters.

Not anymore.

“Now, I think we should be far more drunken than we are at present. We’ll both have to carry out some unpleasant service by dawn.”

“I am sorry to burden you with it.”

 _Selfish_.

“Oh, don't worry. I have killed for less. In the end, I still believe, or have to believe, that I am carrying out the will of the Lord, whatever that may be. So perchance it was destined to happen that we were to meet, and that it was for me to give you over to the waters. I still think there is a reason to everything, even in senseless deaths. So now, drink, drink until you forget the world,” he says, holding out the skin to her. Brienne takes more gulps, the taste foreign yet welcome.

“Drink as if there was no tomorrow.”

“There won’t be.”

“Then drink ever the more, knowing that there is no tomorrow. Until you forget that you are sitting in this cave. That I am here with you in this godforsaken place.”

“Why would I mean to forget that I am sitting here with you?”

He is the one person here who treats her with kindness and offers a bit of comfort in this unforgiving place.

“Why, aren’t you granted to let your mind lead astray on your last night here on earth? You can go wherever your mind chooses, to whoever you may choose. Our hands may be bound oftentimes, but our mind is free, Lady Brienne. You don't have to stay here inside your mind. That place is truly not at all worth it.”

A soft smile tugs at her lips as she takes another sip. Brienne leans her head back, the wine lifting her spirits higher than she thought possible. The world peels away from her more and more until she can spot a brown stretch of land at the horizon, sitting on her small boat, hearing the world’s breath in the distance.

A soft smile tugs at her lips.

_This is where I will go by dawn. It’s good, isn’t it?_

“I am impressed,” she can hear a voice call out beside her. “You seem to know the river well, m’lady.”

“This is no river,” Brienne argues with a frown.

This is the sea. Tarth. This is Tarth in the distance, she is sure of it.

“River. Sea. All the same. It’s all water in the end, isn’t it?”

“I do not know the river… Tarth is an island. I learned to manage oars and sail before I ever sat a horse,” Brienne finds herself say before she can even think, the words familiar on her tongue. But she can’t turn her head to look at the source of the voice, a sly, easy voice, one that she believes to have heard before, too.

“I’ll spell you at those oars,” the voice goes on. And she can hear the grin. 

“I have reached my final destination. There’s no point rowing further," Brienne argues, glancing at the stretch of land by the horizon. That is as far as she can go. That is as far as she will go. There is no reason to row anymore. 

_This is where I was destined to be all along. I never should have left home. But perchance I’ll be granted to return to it in the afterlife._

“You mean you’ll die?”

“Yes.”

“Someone once told me that I must not. That I must live. Pig-headed stubborn, I may add. Even though I wanted to die, quite badly.”

Brienne wants to turn, but she cannot. She stares at Tarth. This is Tarth. This is where she will return to. It has to be. What else is there for her but this?

“Are you so craven?”

“Craven?” she gasps. “I die for other people, to know them safe.”

Ser Hyle. Podrick. And Ser Jaime.

It may not be heroic, but _craven_? This can’t be craven.

“See? And _that_ is craven. How do you guarantee people’s safety if you don’t stick around to see to it that they are protected? We all may die the day after tomorrow, and you won’t be there to prevent that from happening,” the voice argues, easy, but still… angry… disappointed.

If only she could see the voice’s face.

“I failed, I know.”

“And _that’s_ why you are craven. You failed and now what? You give up. The person who’s told me that I am craven would have none of it, I assure you. Just like my failures weigh far heavier than yours, trust me in this. If someone had reason to give up, it was me. Not you.”

“… Then so I will die craven," Brienne replies stubbornly. 

It makes no difference.

“You know what that person told me? ‘You are under my protection’. What happened to that? Was it all a lie? That would be quite a shock.”

“Perhaps? I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I tried what I could and I failed. And I am sorry and I…,” she mutters, the apologies dribbling out of her mouth like saltwater, but the voice stops her, “The only way to fix something is to go on living to try to fix it. I learned that lesson the very hard way. Staring at islands, rowing your boat all alone, dreaming away? That doesn’t get you anywhere, you foolish thing. You must live.”

“For what? Vengeance?” she huffs.

“What do I know? I have shit for honor and give nothing much on vengeance. So I don’t know what for. I just know _that_ you do. _That_ you have to fight. You promised.”

“You don't need to remind me of my oaths.”

“It seems so if you stare at the silver lining in the distance instead of rowing towards it. I know you can row day and night, yet, here you sit and bathe in your misery. Row. Work. Move. You have steel in your spine, what became of that?”

“It’s broken.”

_I am._

“Steel doesn’t break, wench. It only bends.”

Brienne turns her head around this time, to see a white cloak dipping into water, a light around the figure to obscure her vision.

Ser Jaime, she is sure of it now.

“The only way to make steel change its shape is to reforge it.”

“They took my steel from me. Oathkeeper. The… your sword. It’s Oathbreaker now.”

“Well, then you better get it back. You made me that promise, too. Remember, the man with shit for honor still needs some to be restored. And for that an Oathkeeper is needed. There are still things to do. So you must live, quite simple, isn’t it?”

“It’s over.”

“Only if you let it be. And as I know you, you are too stubborn to give up, no matter what you may tell yourself. So… stop staring at the silver lining, get the oars and start to row. We have a long way ahead of us, still.”

“ _We_?”

There is no ‘we’, just her.

“Why yes. Kingslayers should band together, remember?”

There is a great splash. Brienne blinks as the white light disappears in the water, coloring the sea in a bright light, like sapphires, shining so much that it almost blinds her.

“Ser Jaime! Wait! Where are you going?” she calls out, fear tugging at her.

_Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me. Please. Please. Please._

He said he would stay. Was that all a lie?

_Of course it was, you foolish thing, what did you believe? This is all but a dream. You are still in a cave, getting drunk on wine and false hopes._

Brienne’s hands grab the oars and hold on tight as she starts to dip them into the water before she can even think.

Maybe she can…

But then there is a crack, then two, and suddenly all she sees are stones, and the water formerly around her is now dribbling down from a crevice in the stones, right upon her freckled forehead.

“And? Where were you?” she can hear Thoros ask.

“Astray.”

“What did you see?”

“I don’t know.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“Yet another thing you still have to figure out,” he says. “More wine?”

Brienne takes a sip of the skin, but it suddenly tastes like salt water.

“Craven,” she whispers to herself. “He called me craven.”


	4. Swept Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn rises and Brienne faces her sentence.

Brienne sits on the stony ground, cross-legged, waiting.

 _They are about to come and take me to the river to drown me_ , she thinks to herself. _At least I will not hang._

The thought is a bitter one, she knows, but what other hope does she have but this?

After Thoros and she spent the rest of the night drinking wine between some more hushed, murmured words, her head is still slightly reeling, though she can’t deny she welcomes the sensation somewhat. The world weighs so heavy on her, a bit of lightheadedness is welcome for a change. 

She is ready now. She practiced those words as well. And she will say them. And her voice will not shake. 

That is her last fight, even if her fight won’t be with the sword, as she had hoped back in Renly's camps, back with Ser Jaime.

If not for the pain in her stomach taking her breath away, it'd be far easier, though. 

Perhaps now would be the time to say her prayers? The thought hits Brienne, hard. She talked with Thoros about religion some, but it never crossed her mind that she should make her peace with the Gods as well, or else they will send her to the Seven Hells instead of her stretch of brown, on her small boat. Brienne's breath grows frantic for a moment, but then she catches herself. She shifts her weight to sit on her knees, folding her hands in prayer.

"Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Crone, Smith, Stranger, I pray to you and I pray for your forgiveness for all of my sins, for I know I committed way too many in a short amount of time. I confess that I have killed, I have... I have done some many gruesome things I did not think possible till last. Yet I did. And I hope that you will forgive me. I pray you, I did them not out of vile spirit, but because I hoped that they were the means to know those protected I've sworn to protect."

Brienne lets out a shaky breath, calling the images of her killing the man who was to take her to Ser Jaime's camp to mind, how she smashed his face with a stone after he tried to take her maidenhead, calling to mind the blood on her face, the shaking of her hands, how she had cut off his hand, shoved a sword through his body even though he was long since dead, calling to mind how she had slain the men who hurt Ser Jaime, calling to mind their heads, calling to mind every single sin that comes to her mind. And Brienne just hopes there is a way of forgiveness to these sins. 

"Mother, I pray to you, please show mercy with young Podrick and Ser Hyle. And please, show mercy with Ser Jaime. I know he has done some many great bads, but he is a good man, I know it. By my honor... if there is some of it, but I know it true, I swear. He did some many great deeds and he may continue to. He deserves a second chance, so please, be gentle, please, show mercy. I pray to you, Crone, guide them to where they are safe. Grant them a safe passage. And guide Ser Jaime someplace safe as well... please, just let them all be safe. And my Father, please, guide my Father. Let him find a new wife and have more worthy heirs to fill Evenfall Hall with life in my stead... And, and Lady Sansa and Lady Arya, guide them back home, or at least to where they are protected. And Thoros... Hold your protective hands over them all, Mother, Crone."

Brienne licks her lips, pressing her hands together even tighter, "Father, bring me to the justice that I deserve. You shall judge over me as you find proper. I shall never complain or question your treatment of me. Warrior, I pray to you, give me courage. I shall not falter. I shall not shed my tears. Grant me courage to leave this life with my head held high. Maiden... I pray to you, it seems that I shall die at least having that one virtue of yours, for all it's worth... but please, let my Father have more children who will bring forth life for my house. Smith, give me strength not to resist, give me strength to let go, to fight my body and make it yield to destiny. Crone, I pray to you once more, guide me the way to where I am destined to go, wherever that may be. And for some mercy, too, Mother.... And I pray to you, Stranger, I beg you... selfishly so, to take me with you fast but perhaps with a gentle hand. So the Father will, I may be granted this one last bit of comfort, but if not... it's all the same. I will accept whatever treatment you may choose for me. Just... just make sure that they are safe, please don't take any of them. Please."

_Please._

Her hands are shaking as she tries to push the prayer out of her body and send it out of this bloody cave, so it may reach higher than herself, up in the air, to the Gods, to the Seven beyond.

Brienne opens her eyes, her weight involuntarily shifting aside so that she has to sit back up again.

 _You have to be strong now_ , she tells herself. _You mustn't be weak. Or else your prayers will be all for nothing. Be strong. Be stronger._

Brienne bites her lower lip. Right at this moment, she wished she could travel back to where her mind led her astray inside her dream last night, to go search for Ser Jaime in the waters, but she cannot hope for that to happen. He must live. She meant that, and will forever mean it.

His death is the one she can't bear.

 _You have to be strong, for him_ , she can hear a voice inside her head, her own voice, dark, demanding.

 _But I am not strong enough_ , another voice, her own voice again, yet gentle, but no less lighter, says.

_You have to be._

_I can't._

_It makes no difference that you can. You have a duty and it's yours to fulfill it. You made a solemn vow. You do it for a good purpose. That is all you can hope for. You don't die for nothing. You die for something. This is your purpose._

_But I am afraid._

_Swallow your fear and let it drown along with you._

Brienne bows her head. Time is way too fleeting for her to tell what time it is exactly. Is it dawn already? Still at night? The voices inside her head keep nagging at her, and it's torture. She should have asked the Lady Stoneheart to kill her straight away. Waiting is so much worse. It makes her walls crumble.

_I need those walls._

_Not for much longer. In death, there are no walls, just light, unending._

Brienne runs her hand over her eyes.

_No tears._

But the tears still come, burning down her freckled, marred skin. She angrily rubs at her eyes, sniffing once, twice. Brienne sucks in a shaky breath to calm herself.

 _This is my choice, so I have to bear the consequences_ , she reminds herself. _My choice is life, their life, his life._

Brienne breathes in and out a few times, and for a moment a familiar face flashes across the behind of her eyelids. Golden. But she pushes it away at once. She cannot linger. She must not. She did that far too long with Renly.

Brienne gets up once she hears familiar footsteps creeping over the stones as Thoros enters the small cave.

She stands as straightly as she can. She won’t die a beauty, that much is for certain, but she won’t die crouching either.

_I shall not bend._

Perhaps she still has some steel in her spine to spare, if only for that one last walk.

“It is time,” Thoros says solemnly. Brienne gives a curt nod. Thoros grabs her by the upper arm to lead her out of the cave.

“Are you going to run away?” he asks.

“Never.”

“I thought so. And I daresay that’s still pretty damn stupid.”

“You said it, I am a fool.”

“True again. And so am I,” he says. "And so are we all."

Brienne blinks once her eyes are exposed to the light of the new day.

_My last day. A day like any other, but still my very last._

Brienne consoles herself that it's quite a beautiful sight. The canopy is dipped in warm colors. Red. Orange. Yellow. Warm green. Brown.

A bit like Evenfall Hall, but only just a little.

The air is crisp and fresh after the heavy rain from last night. Brienne sucks in a deep breath, smelling the wet earth and moist grass. The smell of petrichor.

She is led down the steep way, down the stones until there are the first blades of grass, which make rustling noises beneath their feet as they walk.

“They’ve already gathered further down the river,” Thoros tells her. “Since you were quite dramatic in your demand last night, they seem to have the wish to make this more of a spectacle.”

“Like Ser Jaime’s death?” Brienne can't help but huff bitterly. "Or rather his funeral feast?"

“I cannot say for certain that there won’t be another feast tonight,” Thoros grimaces. “I hope they’ve run out of wine, though.”

“I thought life was worth celebration.”

“Life is, yes, but death?”

Brienne exhales as they continue to make their way down the river, which gets louder and louder in her ears. Familiar sounds.

_This is where I belong.  
_

_From the waters I have come, and to the waters I shall return._

_Let me have no fear. It should be alright._

_Right?_

Eventually she can hear voices growing louder and louder, rising like a wave during a nearing storm, until some of the men of the Brotherhood come into sight – and Lady Stoneheart, gray as ever, dark as ever, her eyes spotting Brienne at once.

 _I will not be afraid_ , she tells herself yet again, hoping that this time it will remain true. She straightens up as Thoros brings her closer.

“I told them that it’s better to do it further down the river. It’s deep enough here that I won’t have to struggle too hard against you. In the shallow water? It might be that you’ll overpower me and knock me out,” Thoros says.

“It’s for the best, I reckon,” Brienne agrees. “I would make no guarantees. The body moves of its own during moments such as these.”

“Because we hold on to life far more desperately than some of us may want to admit, aye?”

Brienne offers a weary smile, but it fades away as she sees Lem’s broad smirk, and the others smirking, all of them smirking, waiting, lurking.

_But you’ll have none of me. Not my blood. Not my voice. I’ll give it to the river, to the sea. You won’t touch me._

“I bring you the Lady Brienne,” Thoros proclaims, addressing Lady Stoneheart.

“Get her into the water already. I’m growing sick and tired of the sight of hers anyways,” Lem yells. Some of the other man laugh with him, but Brienne doesn’t even hear them. "And I don't want to bear seeing her wet for longer than I must."

_Let it wash over you._

“The Lady says to bring her into the water already,” her speaker says. Thoros nods, whispering to Brienne, “Come on, then, m’lady. It is time.”

It is time indeed.

They step into the water and Brienne can’t help the small hiss.

It’s cold.

She knows it’s cold, but it’s colder than she thought.

A shiver runs through her.

They step over the pebbles and stones until they reach the middle of the river, the water reaching up to above her knee. With a grimace she notes the strong current. Thoros already struggles slightly in the water to keep upright.

“Careful with your step,” she warns him. He gives her a warm smile, “Even now concerned for everyone but yourself? You are truly one of a kind, Lady Brienne.”

Brienne turns to face Lady Stoneheart, who bends over to the man speaking for her to whisper something to him. He gives a nod before he proclaims, “By your own choice, you shall be drowned in this very river. This is the service you have chosen in return for the boy’s and the man’s freedom. And Thoros shall keep you underwater until your chest no longer rises. So? Any last words?”

“M’lady Stoneheart, I shall die the traitor that I am, the _Kingslayer_ that I am,” Brienne begins.

She practiced these words often enough, so her voice is strong, hopefully strong enough to not just carry to the lady’s ear, but inside her mind, her heart, if her heart still beats in her chest, that is.

Lady Stoneheart grimaces at her words, bends over to her speaker, who then says aloud, “… She says that you are no Kingslayer.”

“Oh, the Gods know that I am. The Gods know it’s true that I’ve slain Renly Baratheon. It’s what people say, so it _must_ be the truth. The same way it must be truth that Ser jaime is responsible for her death and that of her clan. I am the same monster they’ve made of Ser Jaime, just in an ungainly body. She knows it true, for she was there with me when I slew him. I am a Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. And that is how I shall die like at last,” Brienne calls out, a murmur following her words.

And if she is not mistaken, the lady stiffens at her words.

A moment of hesitance.

 _Good_.

“Is that all?” Lem huffs. “Or do we finally move on?”

“I hope for you that you may live through the same Ser Jaime did, m’lady,” Brienne goes on, ignoring the man.

He is not her concern. He is so small, she doesn’t even see him anymore.

Her task is this. These words. This is her fight, not battling a man without honor.

“What was that?” the speaker gapes.

“For he redeemed himself and died a better man than the one he was. I hope that you will have the same fortune, m’lady Stoneheart. May the Crone guide you – and may the Mother have mercy with you and your daughters, whom I wanted to find more than anything in the world, but did not succeed in. May the Mother be with them, for their mother won’t ever be with them again, for her heart is out of stone now,” Brienne goes on, her eyes trained on the gray-cloaked woman.

“Are you done?”

Brienne answers by kneeling down in the water, her eyes fixed on Lady Stoneheart the whole time.

_I may not win the fight, but I will go down fighting nonetheless._

After all, didn't Ser Jaime say it often enough? She is too stubborn to just give up.

“Well, then say your prayers, Kingslayer’s Whore. You won’t have the air for it much longer,” Lem calls out to her.

“Are you ready?” Thoros asks, his hand ghosting over her back.

A small comfort.

“Just be quick about it,” Brienne nods, setting her jaw in a straight line. 

“I wish you farewell, Lady Brienne,” he says before grabbing her in the back of the neck and pressing her into the water.

Brienne’s body is buried by the stream, her limbs still at first. Years of diving have taught her body too well to hold her breath for a long time. The others watch on as time passes. At some point, her body starts to revolt, however. She thrashes against Thoros’ grasp, her body fighting back for air. The red priest keeps his arms steady on her, the water splashing and sloshing, soaking his clothes, splashing against his face, his hair, transparent blood covering him.

Murmurs rise higher and higher with every second passing, but then it all falters as her limbs go rigid.

Her movement stills.

And then... silence.

The world breathing shallowly.

Thoros bends down further, his fingers pressing against the side of her neck, only to straighten up to call out to Lady Stoneheart, “She’s dead, m’lady.”

He keeps his eyes fixed on her for a long moment.

"She has served her sentence."

“Hey, watch out, the big bitch’s drifting away, you fool!” Lem cries out. Thoros looks behind him as Brienne’s body drifts away in the strong current, fed by the rain that fell upon the earth last night.

“What harm’s done if she does? Better not have that body close to camp, aye? In case people come looking for her or anyone else for the matter,” Thoros argues. “Let her be swept away.”

He turns back to Lady Stoneheart, “Or am I wrong, m’lady?”

The undead woman mutters something, and then the man who is her voice speaks aloud, “Let her be swept away, she says.”

“Then it is done.”

Thoros puts his hands on his lips as he watches her body drift away in the current, tossed back and forth.

“I hope that you find what you are seeking, Lady Brienne,” he mutters to himself, but then glances back at the woman in gray.

“I pray for her,” he whispers, shaking his head. “I pray for us all. For now even the dawn is dark and full of terrors."


	5. Drowned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime finds something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking around and for the kind kudos and comments!
> 
> Oh yeah, I still have no clue about geography. As I said in the beginning, all just fantasy. I hope it's alright that I take my liberties with that river and... well, the locations.

Jaime glances around nervously, wrinkling his nose as he stomps his way over broken twigs, moist ground, and pools of mud.

_Why is there always so much damn mud?!_

It just slows him down – and Jaime already is far enough behind, he doesn’t need any further delay, in fact, he cannot chance much further delay, he fears.

He has to get to her before it’s too late. _Stupid ugly wench_. How dare she poison him and take off on her own?

_Stubborn wench._

_Why does she have to be so stubborn?_

_She’ll get herself killed, by the Gods. If they didn’t kill her already, that is…_

Jaime stops for a moment as a hot pain spreads in his belly, as though someone rammed a hissing poker of hot iron right through his side, twisting it back and forth inside the invisible wound.

He picks up pace.

She better be alive or he’ll kill her.

“I still can’t believe that she’s stolen my clothes _and_ my hand,” Jaime mutters, treading further up the river.

When he awoke some hours later, Jaime found himself tugged in with some linen in the crevice between the stone boulders where they had made camp, clad in what feels and smells like peasant clothes at best. Cotton breeches and tunic, and a jacket out of knotted leather… At least she left him his boots, by the Seven.

And by the Seven, does Jaime hope that she was red like a tomato when she changed him as he lay unconscious, _stupid wench_.

Well, to her honor, Brienne left him his horse and a sword, too.

He bound Honor to a tree a few yards further down the river. Because of the rain, the ground is either wet or so moist from the water that the horse may easily slip – and bury him underneath its weight, and Jaime truly neither has the time nor the will to put up with that. He is swift enough on his feet to go venture around. Jaime followed the woman's trail until it got lost in the rain, which left him to ride around almost headlessly thereafter, until he came closer and closer to the river. Jaime reckoned that this may perchance be the best option to head. People need water, even outlaws.

But up to this point, he didn’t find a single trail to follow or to guide him to anywhere close to where Brienne may be.

Jaime hopes that he’ll find the hideout somewhere up the river at last, or well, he would rather not, knowing that his sword skills with his left are anything but solid, but he shall be damned if he lets the wench go there on her own, and get killed in the process.

_I didn’t jump in that bear pit for nothing._

Though the knight _does_ wonder what that whole deal with the Lady Stoneheart is about. Back in King’s Landing and during his time on the way to and in the Riverlands, he believed it no more than a rumor, like the ones about the Young Wolf jumping into his direwolf’s skin to haunt the people back in the day. The folk has to hook its hopes upon something, and myth and stories are oftentimes the only way of escape from the harsh reality of war.  

And Jaime should know. He told himself some many stories to hold on to things not worth it, things that were no more than a myth, a comforting fantasy in an unforgiving reality.

Lady Catelyn is dead. His father saw to that with the help of the Freys during that godforsaken wedding. How is it that she is suddenly supposed to have survived? They cut her throat, by the Seven. Jaime knows by now that you can lose your hand without losing your life, but you can’t lose your throat without losing your life. That is simply a thing of impossibility. 

But Brienne wouldn’t lie about these matters, of that Jaime is most certain. And _that_ is the issue. Sure, she lied about that onion broth and Sansa being a day’s ride from the camps, but Jaime can’t bring himself to believe that Brienne would breed out that lie to tell him as he passed out. There was no need to do it. Had she wanted him harm, Brienne would have killed him there. The wench made sure that he was safe the best one could likely do in that situation before riding off alone – and the body she said laid buried beneath the stone boulder had mysteriously disappeared alongside her.

Though Jaime is still not over the fact that the wench dared to take his golden hand.

_My hand! Who steals a hand?!_

But it remains, the things she lied about were the things she said back in the camps. What Brienne said to him before he drifted into nothingness… It has to be the truth. There is no way around it inside Jaime's mind, no matter how he twists or turns it. 

And that means that Catelyn Stark has risen from the dead after all.

Some myths seem to find footing in the real world against better judgment.

The world is truly, truly insane. The dead are now also coming to haunt people like him outside their dreams.

And _that_ means that Brienne is in dire danger.

And _that_ means that it befalls on him yet again to save the Maiden of Tarth.

Jaime lets out a sigh.

_Why didn’t you just tell me, wench? Instead of knocking me out. I could have taken my army and smashed that band of outlaws for you, no bother._

_Why do you put your life at risk like that?_

But then her other words reach back into his mind. About Podrick Payne and… What was his name? _Ser Hyle_. Jaime never heard of that fellow, though the name sounds dumb. But Podrick? He knows Podrick. Tyrion’s squire. A young boy, nice, good manners, he recalls.

So if Catelyn… _Lady Stoneheart_ holds the boy and that other man hostage, then marching in with an army surely would have meant the end of Lady Stoneheart and her companions, but also the end of those two. They would have killed them before the troops had reached in a radius of ten miles around wherever they are hiding.

Gods be good, Brienne better not be right in her betrayal – because Jaime is angry, and he wants to be furious for a reason.

He had considered going back to the Lannister camps after he awoke, but then her words kept echoing inside his mind how there are spies in the camps, which is why Brienne didn’t speak freely to him when she rode up to him. And yet again, there was no reason for her to lie about it.

In the end, Jaime decided that he could likely trust her words more than he can trust that of most other people, those lies notwithstanding. While Jaime must admit he didn’t even think her capable of lying to him the way Brienne did in the first place, Jaime doesn’t think that the wench is capable of more lies than the ones she told him.

Perhaps he was wrong about her being able to lie, but Jaime refuses to believe that he was so entirely wrong about her when it comes to her being incapable of malice.

 _Brienne is no traitor. No._ _That’s out of question._  

She’d rather die than fail at her oaths. And if she thinks she needs to break them, then she must do so in the conscience that it is the only way to protect some greater good.

Jaime glances at the river another time. Due to the heavy rain of the last few days, it’s almost overflowing, the water gushing wildly down the stream, the water tumbling over the rocks without relent. 

He inevitably has to think back to the time when he almost killed the wench by a river, because sure as the Seven Hells burn was Brienne _not_ beating him. How they fought in the water, the red blossom on her thigh, and the shock that shook him right to the core once Jaime realized that the Maid of Tarth was more of a match to him than he ever believed possible.

To think that the same woman would be the one he’d load his hopes of honor upon, in search for Sansa…

To think that this mulish woman would go as far as to poison him.

And take his hand.

His _hand_!

She’ll have to pay for that thing. It was custom-made. Useless, sure, but costly. Jaime could hold a cup of wine with it, drink a toast o someone undeserving of it. And smack some idiot across the mouth for talking about the wench in a dishonorable manner.

_And wasn’t that sweet?_

Though then again, his family is still stinking rich, so Jaime can get himself a new one if he wanted it. 

_Maybe a hook next time. Hooks seem far more useful than this thing ever was._

Nevertheless it remains that Brienne ought to repay him in another _currency_ , then, if not with gold. He will see to that. But for that he has to find her first.

_Where are you, Brienne?_

“You better be alive and healthy, wench. You owe me retribution for that,” Jaime grunts as he makes his way up a slippery path of wet stones, as the river spews water all over its edges, making the way even more difficult to travel over.

The knight out of armor frowns as a large object washes down the river, the current tossing it around as though it was weightless. Maybe some cadaver?

_Gods be good, this better not be a bear._

He made that acquaintance once and doesn't need revisiting.

_Only wait until I’ve found you, wench. Then I can tell you about that bear, oh, or that formerly betrothed of yours! Or even better, you will finally have to justify yourself for keeping that secret from me. I won’t let you off the hook that easily once I got you back. You owe me a debt for this, woman, and you are to pay me back with interest._

Jaime makes a few steps forward, but then slips on the stone, letting out some many curses, “That is all because of you, wench! Seriously, why the _hand_?!”

He scrambles back to his feet, rubbing his hand and stump over the now mud-soiled breeches, feeling the ache in his knees.

 _You are doing this for a good reason_ , Jaime reminds himself. _You put up with that for a good cause._

His eyes drift back over to the object being swept closer and closer to where he is standing.

No bear, _thank the Gods_. Or any other furry animal for the matter.

Jaime cocks an eyebrow at the thing, trying to figure out what it may be.

 _I should be on my way, but here I am, glancing at what’s probably an animal’s cadaver or a body_ , Jaime scolds himself. _I have more important matters than this. I have no time to lose._

He already means to turn and make his way further up the river in search of Brienne, when his feet stop on their own accord at the sound of a crow cawing far away.

_Seven Hells, that bloody herb she mixed into the broth must still make him silly in the head. What was the name again? Faintwhisper? The wench shall hear me roar about this once it’s time. Faintwhisper my arse._

He shall see to it that the wench never gets her big hands on that stuff in a lifetime again.  

And suddenly, Jaime's mind is set on a small boat, on Robin Ryger and his men, and how the wench dived into the waters like some giant carp, only to drop a stone on Ryger and his men as though the stone was hollow on the inside. 

_Gods, that was marvelous,_ Jaime remembers almost fondly.

In the end, he is glad that he didn’t decide to hit her with the oar. Even though… currently Jaime not too sure about that, for the woman gives him headaches once more, and not all come from that stupid herb Brienne used to knock him out with.

Jaime licks his lips as the images of their initial journey together return to him, seep through him like the river’s water soaks his boots, but that is when he sees in the cadaver a thatch of flax blonde hair… and that tunic… that he knows from…

“Brienne!” he cries out in shock as the realization smacks him across the face.

Jaime jumps into the water as fast as his body allows him to move. He can feel the cold water nagging at his skin, but doesn’t really register it inside his head. While fed by the rain to the point that the water reaches up to his chest, the current is not strong enough to toss him underwater. Jaime swims over to the large body tossed back and forth by the current, trying to get a bit of her tunic or whatever else to hold on to. His left hand curls around the shoulder pad at last. Jaime holds on as tightly as he can as he rams his heels into the pebbles underwater to keep them from drifting down the river further.

Two hands would be _really_ useful right now.

The knight can do nothing but hook his right arm under one of her armpits to press her as tightly as possible to himself to use his left hand to hold on to the bigger stones sticking out of the water not to lose his footing as he tries to get back to the riverside.

 _You can count yourself lucky that I am a good swimmer, wench_ , Jaime thinks to himself with every push he manages. _People who don't come from the coast would probably stand no chance._

Maybe it pays off at last that he always wanted to be the best swimmer in Casterly Rock.

“C’mon now,” he growls deep in his throat, his body straining not only against the cold of the water, but also the current meaning to sweep his feet away from underneath him, and the wench’s dead weight in her arms.

“You better not be dead or…,” Jaime means to say, but the curse dies on his lips.

_Just don’t be dead._

At last he manages to heave her upper body over the ledge with a smacking sound as her frame collides with the wet stone, covered in mud and rotten leaves. She might have some bruises from that later, but it should make no difference now.

Jaime breathes hard as he pushes himself over the ledge, sputtering and coughing up water, his arms shaking from the strain and cold.

The air catches in his throat when he feels Brienne’s lax body slightly drifting away, for her legs and hips are still dipped into the current.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Jaime grumbles, using his left hand and right arm to finally pull her over the ledge and into the mud.

He pushes Brienne onto her back, her mannish body moving like a wet sack of flour, her long limbs smacking against the mud with a wet slapping sound. Jaime cups her face with his left hand, feeling the mud and small grains of sand against his palm and fingertips.

“Brienne.”

Jaime spots something sapphire blue.

But it’s not her eyes.

Her _lips_ , they are…

Jaime leans his head on her flat chest, trying to detect a breath, then a heartbeat.

Something.

Anything.

But nothing.

“Gods no,” he gasps, the air catching in his throat.

_It can’t be that I came too late. It mustn’t be too late. I can’t fail all over._

_Not her._

“Brienne!” Jaime keeps calling out as he begins to rub his still rather clumsy hand over her sternum, trying to coax a reaction out of her body, but nothing. She lays there, motionless, cold.  

“Brienne!” he shouts again, clapping her face another time. “C’mon now, wake up!”

_Cold._

This shouldn’t be cold.

She shouldn’t be cold.

_She always felt warm._

“Brienne!”

Jaime then goes ahead to place the heel of his left hand on her chest and pushes down with all the power he can muster, again and again and again.

_If only I had my right hand now._

Never did he dread the loss of his hand as much as right at this second.

“Brienne. You cannot die, you hear me? You cannot!”

He continues pressing down on her flat chest again and again.

_Breathe, breathe, by the Seven. Breathe already!_

“I forbid you to die on me here. Brienne?”

Jaime’s hand slips away, slick from the water and his powers already leaving him. He leans down on her. Still no breath. Still no flutter of a pulse.

Nothing, just nothing.

“I forbid you, you hear me? I _forbid_ you to die!”

She can’t die before him.

_You cannot die **for** **me**! _

Jaime tilts her head back and opens her broad mouth, pinching her nose, before sucking in a deep breath and sealing her lips with his, breathing into her, breathing for her, once, twice. Her breath tastes faintly of red wine and spices, her lips chapped and swollen from the water they absorbed. And cold. He can taste the cold.

Brienne's flat chest rises and falls as he breathes into her, but once he pulls away from her mouth…

“Nothing, still. Damn.”

Jaime puts his left back down on her chest and starts to press at an unsteady rhythm. He can feel his body shake with every push, his lungs straining to the point that he can only let out ragged breaths.

“I. Command. You. To. Live,” he says with every push before leaning back down in the hope to finally register the slightest intake of air, the faintest flutter of a pulse beneath freckled skin.

But nothing.

Still nothing.

He opens her mouth again before sealing her lips with his, trying to breathe for her.

Desperation rises within him with every second passing where she doesn’t gasp.

Jaime would truly rather have her curse him right at this moment. Even if the wench called him “Kingslayer” or “monster,” for as long as that meant she finally breathed again, he wouldn't bother.

“Brienne. C’mon, wake up. You have to wake up, you hear me?”

Has he come too late?

Is it all too late now?

Has he failed _Brienne_ of all people now too?

Jaime long since lost faith in the Gods, but he thought they wouldn’t be so foolish to take the one good-hearted person perhaps in all of Westeros, if not the world entire.

“Brienne!”

Push. Push. Push.

 _Breathe_.

Nothing.

Push. Push. Push.

 _Breathe_.

“Please!”

At some point Jaime cannot say how long he continues with the routine, how many times his hand slips away, scratching the heel of his hand on the stone until it’s all but bloody scratches, mixing with the water dribbling down the both of them, the only thing he knows is that at some point, his body loses its might, and all he can do is sit back, chest heaving while hers won’t even rise once, shaking, quivering, muttering “please, please, please."

_Stupid thing, why did you go off on your own? Why did you…_

Jaime can’t even bring himself to curse her in his mind. The ache is too overwhelming.

He thought he was to start a new quest, or pick up on the old. Find Sansa. With Brienne. Hunt down some hopes of honor. But now…

Now all of that seems to be over.

It’s over. And that before it’s even started.

_Because of me. This is because of me. She died because of me. For my shit sense of honor._

Jaime can feel warm water dribbling down his cheeks, but he is too shocked to care to struggle for composure, to hold back the tears.

This is the woman he was willing to sacrifice his life for by jumping into a bloody bear pit. He thought he had set her out on a mission that would grant her a new purpose, after she seemed so hollowed out after Cat’s death. He had set her out in the good faith that the armor and letter he had given her, she’d be somewhat safe.

_I sent her to her doom. Or rather, I sent her to mine and she paid the price for it._

This is his fault.

This death is on him.

Her death is on him.

What does honor matter if that is the price for it?

Why are the Gods so cruel?

Why do they spare the bad and not the good?

 _She was good, you bloody assholes_ , Jaime curses inside his head, gritting his teeth. _I knew you never played fair for as long as it fitted your purposes, but this is a great wrong. And you should know it. It was wrong and will forever stay wrong. This is on you. I curse you all! Shall the Stranger dig the graves for you all and then collapse into his own once the deed is done, too._

Had they taken him, it would have made sense. Jaime is a bad man, he knows it true. Fucked his own sister and brought forth children from that union. Murdered. Tossed small boys out of windows. But Brienne? What did she do? Other than being stubborn, way too set on honor, and ungainly? Jaime never had illusions about it that the world as well as the Gods are full of injustice, but seemingly very foolishly, he had thought that the likes of Brienne of Tarth were outside that injustice even with all of that bad in the world.

_She always towered above these things, and not just because she is as tall as a giant._

This is not just.

This is not right.

She didn’t deserve it.

She deserved something else.

And the problem is that _he_ damned her to that death. By giving her a purpose that was his. His honor shouldn’t ever have been her mission to carry out. Jaime should have sent men with her, no matter if that had caused a scandal. Perchance he simply should have ridden out with her. What held him in King’s Landing back in the day was all but a feverish dream anyways, a construct of lies that now lies collapsed, burned in a letter he can’t even remember the words of.

_I should have come with you. I never should have let you go off on your own, no matter how annoying your company can be at times… **could** be… _

 He should have done more. Simply more.

_I never should have let you go off alone, Brienne._

_I am sorry._

The pain in his stomach is almost overwhelming, but this pain burns cold, very cold. Right in his throat, his gut, his limbs, his eyes.

“Sorry.”

In the distance that bloody crow caws again. Jaime turns his head in the general direction, trying to spot the black bird somewhere in the distance, but cannot.

This better be only just a crow. If only one vulture dares to come closer, he’ll slay that animal, no doubt. She won’t be any bird’s meal. No one will feast on her in such a manner, he’ll see to that.

_Damn you, Brienne. Why couldn’t you trust me to help you? Or why did you trust me enough to carry out what? A greater mission? The man without honor? Why did you have faith in me? The Kingslayer? What were you thinking?_

At some point, far in the back of his head, Jaime always hoped that someone would care about him so much to give his or her life for him. But now that it appears that someone did… he’ rather take it all back.

_I’d rather die than…_

A gasp.

Jaime whips his head back around.

That wasn’t him. That was…

“Brienne!”

Her chest rises up and down like a boat in a storm. Jaime scrambles over to her as water sputters out of her mouth. He quickly rolls her on her side to let the water flow out, his left hand holding her in place.

She is alive.

_She is alive._

Gods be good.

_Gods be good._

Thank you.

Thank you.

_Thank you._

Once the water stops coming out of her, he rolls her back onto her back, cupping her mud-smeared, marred cheek with his hand.

“Brienne. _Brienne_. Look at me.”

_I have to see your eyes to be sure of it. Come on now. Show me your sapphires._

Her eyes flicker open at last. And as the blue flashes back into her eyes, it leaves her lips, fades away.

Thank the Gods.

_Thank the Gods._

He can feel warmth spreading deep in his gut, taking his breath away.

“Brienne?”

Her eyes focus on him. Blue fades into emerald.

The crow goes on cawing in the distance. The stream keeps splashing and sloshing in the background, but other than that, there is no sound but that of her breath. Erratic, desperate, but there.

She is here.

“S, ser… Jai… me?” Brienne stutters between ragged breaths, her voice faint and strained.

“Who else would it be?” Jaime says hoarsely with a sad smile.

_It had to be me. And it should have been me before you ever gave me that broth to eat._

Brienne just keeps staring at the man looming above her, water dribbling down from his golden curls on her freckled face.

 _I don't feel the cold now, though_ , she thinks to herself. _  
_

“I’m… m… dead?” she asks. 

_He calls me “Brienne”, not “wench.” Now I must truly be dreaming away, far, far away. But where is Tarth?_

Where is her home in the distance?

“No, very much alive. How else would I be here?” Jaime answers.

 _In my dreams,_ she replies without words travelling past her lips. _In the blue waters beneath my boat._

This cannot be.

It cannot.

She was…

“You don’t get rid of me that easily, just like I don’t get rid of you that easily, wench,” he says with a smile, flashing his teeth at her. Brienne can do nothing but frown at him.

She _must_ be dreaming. Why else would he be smiling?

He hates her.

He _has_ to hate her.

She lied to him.

Betrayed him.

Poisoned him.

Took his armor and his clothes.

And his hand.

Lied.

Betrayed.

Poisoned.

She’s seen to it that Ser Jaime would forever hate her. So he wouldn’t come looking for her. She lied, betrayed, poisoned. There is no reason for him to be here.

This cannot be the real Jaime. He’ll jump into the river and disappear into the light any second now, like he did back on the boat, back in the dream. There is no other way.

He wouldn’t touch her ugly face like that, no, no.

_No one ever would, not like that._

Brienne’s gaze shifts back to the river, the waters rushing past them. 

_It should have taken me to Tarth by now, if only inside my mind. Why am I still here? Or have I sinned so much that I won’t be granted the boat close to Tarth even in the afterlife?_

“Hey, hey! Eyes on me. No drifting away, you hear me?” Brienne can hear Jaime call out, and her attention inevitably falls back on him, even though the river keeps calling to her.

Brienne blinks as she feels a clammy hand tapping the side of her cheek.

_In the dream he said…_

“Eyes on me,” Jaime says again, his breath somewhat frantic, but nonetheless soothing for her.

And… is that _worry?_ Brienne isn’t sure.

_I was never good at reading people._

Brienne simply does as she is told. Be it that this is simply yet another dream of hers, one last time before she dreams forever of her small boat amidst the ocean.

It’s done, isn’t it? And the red priest said that she may now lead her mind astray.

Why not in Ser Jaime’s eyes one last time?

“You’ll be alright.”

Brienne just lets the words wash through her.

“You have to stay awake, you understand?”

That’s right. She has to stay awake indeed, even if she wants to dream away. Death is no dream. It’s the end of a dream.

_I am dead. I just have to awaken._

Brienne just keeps looking at him, breathing heavily. And he doesn’t turn away his gaze either.

She opens her mouth to say something, but her voice is drowned. So all she is left with to look at him, only the voice inside her head speaking to itself.

_I dreamed of you._


	6. Petrichor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne has another dream and wakes up to another scene than she thought she would. 
> 
> Rain comes and goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> I can't even express my gratitude for all the kind comments you reward me with. Thank you sooooooo much *hugs*. ♥♥♥
> 
> I know I spend a lot of time on those dream sequences, but I am kinda fond of writing them, what can I say? 
> 
> Oh yeah, I apologize in advance for geographical inaccuracies... and other inaccuracies. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!!! ☺
> 
> Much love! ♥

Brienne glances upon an empty wheatfield, the strong breeze letting the stems dance in the gust with a strange kind of grace. She makes a few tentative steps over the field, listening to the sound the stems make as they bend under her weight and the stones move beneath her leather boots.

_Where am I?_

_Where is the water?_

_Where is Tarth?_

_Where is my boat? The brown stretch in the distance?_

_And what of Ser Jaime jumping into the water and disappearing in a flash of light? What about the oars?_

_Just where is the sea?_

_I can hear it in the distance, clear like a nightingale’s song._

The wind suddenly gains a lot more force, her straw-like hair slapping against her face, making it hard for her to see where she is going.

Snowflakes suddenly begin to fall, feeling incredibly heavy on her head and shoulders.

_Winter is Coming, as the Starks would say._

The sky turns into an angry shade of dark gray, with stretches of purple, orange, and red, a strange sort of thunder rolling over far off South, as though the sky was on fire while the soil continues to freeze under the falling snow.

Brienne shivers, wrapping her big hands around her frame, trying to preserve her body’s heat, but with horror she realizes that there is none. Just her body clutching on to itself.

Splish. Splat.

Where is the ocean? She can hear the water that isn’t frozen, but where is it?

_This is where I belong, not here, not this place._

_This is not home._

Suddenly, the wheat freezes, as though it was preserved by time itself, the crystals shining like diamonds held against the light. The sky seems to tilt, blue stretches of the firmament fighting for dominance over the red flame flitting with a deafening uproar through dark clouds of ashes, only to have clouds freezing to massive pieces and breaking down from the sky, to shake the earth as they land on the soil, wrecking the earth.

Brienne almost falls over at the impact.

She scrambles back to her feet, frowning as the snow mixes with ashes on her shoulders, making it hard for her to keep standing. The ice doesn’t melt through the ashes – and the ashes are not doused by the cold of the snow.

_What is all this?_

Splish. Splat.

Brienne whips her head around, trying to detect the noise that seems to follow her with a cruel taunt, but once she glances behind herself, there is just a line of blood, little droplets on wheat that starts to freeze by the edges, like rubies tossed into a pool of diamonds.

“You have an arrow in your back, you know. And another in your leg. You ought to let me tend them.”

"You?" Brienne finds herself say though she cannot see the person from whose mouth these words drop into the world.

_Who would want to help me anyway? Or tend to me?_

"Who else?”

Another round of thunder rolls all the way from South to North, and a hiss comes back from the North down South.

Brienne turns back ahead, ignoring the blood seeping down her body, leaving rubies as she goes.

_I can’t feel it._

_I don’t feel the pain._

_You hear me, Goodwin? I don’t feel the pain, for all the good it's done me._

She blinks at Ser Jaime standing before her, offering his usual sort of smile, and her feet suddenly gain more strength to stand their ground.

The snow and ash do no longer feel as heavy on her body.

“Is this the end of the world?” she calls out to him as the thunder keeps growling.  

“Truth be told, I do not know. It might be the end. Or it might be the beginning of something new. Sometimes the old things have to die for the new to arise, but who am I to say?” he tells her, glancing around, still rather fascinated by the hell breaking loose around them, his emerald eyes gleaming like gemstones. The snow falls easily on his shoulders, mixing with the white of his cloak.

But he wears no armor… just the cloak and his usual attire. But he needs better protection than that!

“Why am I here?” Brienne asks, her breath frantic. She doesn’t dare to approach him.

_Or else he’ll disappear again, I’m sure. He will only stay as long as I let this illusion live on._

“How would I know? You brought me here, or so I reckon. You need me to treat your wounds. Why else would you have called?” he asks, looking at her, making one step towards her.

Brienne takes two steps back, “I don’t.”

“Who else will?” he argues. “If not I?”

_I will myself, as I have always done…_

“Are we to die here, you think?” Brienne keeps asking, shuddering as another round of thunder means to challenge the hisses from the North.

“We all die this way or another, I suppose. Some sooner, some later, some return for a while, some go forever, but we all die. That’s the one thing I know without a doubt,” Jaime tells her, glancing up to the sky with almost childish glee now as the world keeps collapsing by the edges and mountains burst to heaps of rubble.

“Am I dead yet?”

“You have a tendency to ask me questions I do not have the answer to, Brienne. Suffice to say, if we are to die here, then how can you be dead already?” he argues, and Brienne can’t help another shiver.

When he says her name, it’s…

“I have no reason to be here,” Brienne argues, finding some strength in her voice.

“Yet, here you are. And yet here I am. There must be something that makes us, something greater than us,” he argues, his voice drifting off.

“The Gods?”

“I don’t care about the Gods, but something…. Might, whether it’s called God or not, it makes no difference to me,” he shrugs. “I just reckon there must be a purpose to this, to us because of that big something.”

“I don’t have a greater purpose,” Brienne insists.

She has no purpose at all. She is nothing. She won’t change the world by just an inch. She won’t change the world’s course. They’ll sing the great songs about some many people, but not about her. She’ll be a memory of a memory soon enough.

“ _You_ think that. But it may be that others have something else to say about that. We don’t get to choose at times,” Jaime argues. “So it might well be that you and I don’t get to choose if we have some other purpose to fulfill or not. We don’t get to choose…”

She chose. The death that comes only once your lungs filled with water.

“What do you mean?” Brienne asks.

“You should know yourself.”

“I don’t.”

“Then you need more time figuring it out,” he shrugs.

“Will I have the answer if the world ends before I find it?” she questions.  

“I think the world cares little about what answers you find or leave neglected. The world does what the world wants. We just scramble to our feet again and again as the world throws us down,” he tells her, before making another step towards her, two this time. “You should really let me tend to those wounds of yours. They’ll only get worse.”

“I died,” she argues, the words numbing her tongue. “There is no need.”

“Yet here you stand, bleeding, asking questions, shivering,” Jaime argues, and he keeps coming towards her. Brienne scrambles back, “I am dead.”

_I died for you._

_And now I am dead._

_This is all just imagination._

_I just have to open my eyes and…_

“You can squint as hard as you want, this view will come back to you, trust me in this,” he argues. “You can hide your sapphires as much as you want, but this is one truth I am most certain of.”

“So you do know more?” Brienne asks.

“Perhaps I do, perhaps I am just cheating,” he shrugs, his smile so easy. “Come here now.”

He approaches her and her feet are frozen. She cannot move as he unfastens the cloak around his shoulders and puts it around hers, as though he embraced her, the blood seeping through the fabric, no arrows there, but just the wounds seeping blood.

_Warm._

“Ser Jaime,” she whispers, her voice catching in her throat.

“When will you finally start calling me just Jaime?” he grins, rolling his eyes.

“It is your right, by honor…,” she mumbles.

“I don’t care,” he argues, pressing his left hand against her wound in the back, bringing her closer to him, and more red liquid taints the white cloak.

_I am tainting it._

_Again._

_This is all my fault._

She tries to struggle away, but his hands are too strong for her. The strength just leaves her as he holds her by the shoulders.

“I lost your sword,” she whispers.

_He’ll push me away, then. It’s his magic sword, it’s…_

“Well, we’ll have to figure out how to get it back, then,” Jaime shrugs with nonchalance. “It reflects the light so nicely.”

“The light?” Brienne blinks at him.

Jaime withdraws his hand from her back, blood smeared over his palm, before gripping the handle of his sword wrapped around his waist. He draws the blade and for a moment, Brienne can’t see a single thing as the blueish light blinds her. Once her vision clears, she can see a beam of light reaching up all the way into the raging sky, cutting through the clouds as though they were of silk. And the blue of the sky seems to feed on the blue light of the sword, but once Brienne glances at the blade itself, she can see the red ripples and dark marks from the sky on the blade.

_Oathkeeper…_

No, it can’t be. She lost that blade.

She was not worthy and she lost it.

“We need more light, you see? So we really have to see to it that we get yours back,” Jaime goes on to say, his eyes fixed on the light in the sky.

“It’s yours,” Brienne insists. She never should have taken it.

“By no means. It’s yours now. I gave it to you. And it will be yours, always.”

Brienne just glances at Jaime as he seems to be kissed by the light itself, and if not for the terror of the world surrounding them at this point, she’d marvel at this a lot more, but she cannot. Another uproar comes from the South, and the shriek follows from the North.

“Are you frightened?” he asks.

“Of course I am,” Brienne replies with a huff.

_I can say it now, right? I don’t have to be brave anymore, for no one._

“Good. Never stop being afraid.”

“Why?”

_I **should** be brave, even when I’m not. Isn’t that the only thing people actually ever gave me praise for? However stubborn and foolish that may have been? _

“For as long as you fear death, there might be hope you get your sword back. Because only the living can wield it,” Jaime tells her. “And as I said, we don’t get to choose.”

He withdraws his sword and the light fades away slowly as he sheaths it.

Brienne’s eyes fall back on Jaime who still has that easy smile that gives her goosebumps. Why is he not afraid?

A screeching comes from the South, three in a row, a canon from another time, a time renewed.

She turns to the source of the noise.

“You should run,” she tells him. “It’s too dangerous for you here.”

“I told you before, Kingslayers should band together. I suppose there’s no going back now,” he argues, his smile easy and warm. And even though he touches her shoulder, Brienne feels as though a thousand leagues were between them.

“There must be,” she insists, growing frantic.

There must be going back for him. Because _she_ is damned, but not him, right? Ser Jaime, he must live!

“As I said, ever the more a reason for you to carry on. If I don’t get to choose to run, the only way for you is to stay, or else I have to follow wherever you’ll go.”

“But why?” she asks, her voice quivering.

_Why would you follow me anywhere?_

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t want you to die,” Brienne argues, blinking against the tears starting to form behind her eyelids.

“I don't fancy it either,” he chuckles, before reaching to his sword belt another time, the buckle opening easily with just one grip of his left hand. Brienne just watches as he fastens the sword around her thick waist with one hand and one hand made of solid gold. “This may not be the sword I gave you, but it should do. It comes with a promise akin to the last.”

“You need your sword to protect yourself. Take it back,” Brienne replies frantically, trying to make his hands retreat, but he is strong enough to keep going.

“That sword’s not meant for protecting me. That sword has some entirely different purpose, I believe. It’s not mine to wield. _That_ is what I know. It’s for you to bear. And that it’s something completely new. That is all I know,” he tells her.

Brienne opens her mouth to form a reply, but before she can bring out a word, a cry rolls from her broad lips as pain erupts in her body. Brienne holds her stomach as she bends over, the pain blinding her. She can feel the wounds from the arrows. She can feel the bite on her cheek, the cut on her thigh that Ser Jaime gave her back when they thought, every wound, every scar, and that pain in her stomach that makes her want to cry.

A red light flashes over the sky without a sound.

Leaves rustle in the distance.

A crow screeches close by.

“What is this?” she manages to bring out, feeling Jaime move with her as she kneels on the ground. She hugs her stomach in a futile attempt to contain the pain from spilling out of her like bad blood.

“New beginnings are painful,” he tells her in a comforting voice. “That’s why many of us chicken out of them. I almost did, if not for someone stubbornly insisting on that I must not die.”

“Am I dying now?” Brienne moans.

“Why do you keep asking if you think you’re already dead?” he snorts.

“There’s no pain in death,” Brienne replies.

And that is why none of this makes sense.

“Well, and what does that tell you?”

“… that I’m not dead?” she looks at him with huge eyes.

“Took you long enough, wench. And make sure you are not dead a while longer, will you? To make the pain worth it.”

But what _is_ it worth?

All this suffering?

All this pain?

Honor? How is honor worth all this?

It can’t be worth her, but… but what _is_ it worth, then?

Brienne glances down at the frozen ground, sees the red rubies of blood spreading underneath her.

Jaime cups her chin to pull her gaze away from the wrong gemstones, right back to one of the few she knows to be real, the emeralds in his eyes.

“Don’t worry. You won’t die of that. If you let me tend to you, you’ll get to annoy me for much longer,” he says with a grin.

Brienne looks at him blankly as the pain becomes duller but hotter in her body. And suddenly she can see ice melting around them as though they were the sun.

A flock of crows flies over their heads as a stretch of white light cuts through the sky as though it was a giant sword.

The wheat lies flat from the dew and suddenly there is rain, massive rain.

Water.

_This is where I came from. This is where I ought to return to. This is the state that I am._

The drops fall heavy on her, but it’s a warm rain, a comforting rain, despite the angry red and black still fighting for dominance in the sky, growling and screeching, and the white hissing back as fragments of the sky keep falling to the earth.

Brienne looks back at Jaime, who just gives her a comforting smile, water coating his skin and golden hair, making soft pinging sounds as they hit the golden hand.

“Feels good, doesn’t it? It washes all the bad away,” he says glancing up into the sky as the ice keeps melting through the warm water and the ashes stop falling, doused by the water all the same.

Brienne only nods, glancing at the white cloak about her shoulders, now pinkish due to her blood and the mud now woven into the fabric. _It doesn’t look that threatening anymore_ , she notes, almost fascinated.

She whips her head back around to Jaime, meaning to say something, but that is when the world just disappears in a white flash of light. Ser Jaime disappears along with the cloak, the wheatfield and the falling sky, the crows and the sword, the rustling of leaves and the rain.

Petrichor lies in the air and Brienne inhales one last time until there is nothing but the sound of the world ringing in the distance, above the sky that is no more, into the white light that reaches everywhere and nowhere.   

* * *

 

Brienne wrinkles her nose.

_Where is the petrichor?_

She takes in another breath of air to register the familiar smell of horsehair. She’s ridden horses soon after she learned to manage the oars. Though she only rode a pony for a very short time, because she grew too tall for a pony to handle her weight. Her Father used to tell her that she was the first to ride a horse at her age on entire Tarth.

And back in the day, Brienne had felt so proud of that, that she rode an actual grown mare before all of her age peers – until she understood that it only meant that she was even more of a queer thing than she always believed herself to be.

And isn’t that what grew to be very symptom of her mistakes?

“Slow, Honor,” she can hear a man’s voice calling out beside her.

_Why would honor be slow?_

The man makes a clicking sound with his mouth and Brienne can feel her weight shift slightly.

 _I am on a horseback_ , she realizes. _Does that mean the men of the Brotherhood took me and brought me back to life to kill me again?_

She snaps her eyes open at once, though that only makes her head swim.

“Easy now.”

Brienne blinks, trying to make out something beyond the shadowy shapes dancing before her eyes.

“Oh, are you with us again, m’lady?”

 _I am no lady_ , she thinks to herself, though the words keep dancing before her eyes instead of entering her mind. How often did she say that? At some point people should have understood that this is the plain fact. That this is what she is not and won’t ever be.

Brienne frowns, but then her vision clears up enough to reveal…

“Ser Jaime?” she brings out, though she suddenly feels as though someone put a massive stone on her chest to keep her from breathing. Her voice comes out in no more than a whisper, followed by a small cough that shakes her right to the core.

She can feel caked mud crusted on her cheek and forming bruises on one side of her body, some scratches, but the mud is perhaps worse because it keeps cracking with every time she moves her mouth, just like she can taste the wet sand and rotten leaves on her tongue. She always hated this. That was what humiliation tasted and felt like, being pushed into the mud by the boys who called her names back on Tarth when she was still a young girl and didn’t know how to use a sword or any other weapon. She had just blindly jumped them and wrestled with them in the mud, receiving too many blows to win the fight, no matter her endurance.

It was the same taste she had in her mouth after she beat Ser Humfrey. And while it was her victory by rights of winning the duel, she lost any respect from other people, if she ever had any beyond the one that comes with her name and House. She was this girl people scorned at. It was the day she tasted the bitter, muddy fruit of being a disappointment as mud caked on her face and hands, for it was the last time he father tried to wed her to someone, surely because he had given up all hope to make a match for her.

“It’s almost funny that you keep being surprised at that particular fact whenever you come back around.”

“Come… back around? What?” Brienne asks, though she can barely hear her own voice. She only hears a deep rumble in her chest, a rattling sound like an armor moving on its own.

“You are drifting in and out of consciousness… No wonder,” he says, his voice growing darker towards the end. “So no worries about the rope you feel wrapped around you. For me it was the only way to make sure you don’t fall off the saddle.”

Brienne twists a bit, feeling the rope around her waist, her mind slowly but surely catching up to the situation. She is on a horse, and Ser Jaime has the reins in his left hand as he guides the animal down a muddy path beside a river.

_The river in which they drowned me._

_The river that was supposed to take me away, to Tarth in the distance._

“And before you ask again, no, you are not dead. And yes, this is real,” Jaime goes on.

She has been muttering those questions every single time she awoke, and no matter how many times he told her that she wasn’t dead, she went back to sleep only to believe it again. So his words never seem to reach her, until now, hopefully. Though at some point, Jaime is not entirely sure if he doesn’t feel more and more reassured the more often he says it aloud.

_You are not dead._

_You are alive._

_This is real._

_You are alive – and that is real._

_You are not dead – and that is real._

Brienne mulls his words over inside her head, but it proves to be incredibly difficult. All is blurred out by the edges there, no sharp contours, nothing, just a mush of colors and shadows.

_How long did I sleep?_

_How long did I dream?_

_And am I dreaming still?_

“Brienne?”

“Hm?” she looks at him, her body following her command only very slowly. Her limbs feel both sluggish and heavy, but also rigid to the point that she is somewhat convinced that they are frozen.

“Lady Stoneheart and her men were further upstream, correct? Last time I asked you, you lost consciousness again before you could give me a definite answer.”

“Yes, upstream,” Brienne replies quickly, though that only makes her cough. And coughing hurts very much. The pain reaches all the way from her toes to the pit of her stomach.

_I must be alive, then, right? You don't feel pain once you are dead, or do you? Physical pain, that is._

“Good, so for as long as we walk downstream, we should move away from them.”

“To where?” Brienne asks, her voice coarse.

_I am so tired, why am I so tired?_

“I have no clue. I just know that it is the best option to move away from them. We’ll have to make camp soon enough, but I rather put some distance between us and them for as long as we can. We shouldn’t chance anything anymore for as long as we can help it.”

“… How did you… find me?”

 _Why did you come looking for me_ , she wants to ask instead, but does not, cannot.

She is afraid of the answer.

“I followed your trail, obviously,” he tells her, which only makes Brienne frown ever the more.

She left no tracks. There was the rain, to wash it all away. To wash her away, any trace of her, until nothing remained…

“Well, you seem to have hoped that the broth would knock me out for longer – so the rain would wash away any sort of trail, but I was lucky enough that the birds kept cawing in the distance to wake me up even from that slumber. Or else I may well have ridden the wrong direction right from the beginning. And once those tracks were gone… well, a big stream seemed to be a good bet for a secret hideout. All creatures need water.”

_All creatures need water, right. And some more than others._

_And some **seek** it more than others. _

“One should never make the mistake to underestimate my stubbornness. Sounds familiar, aye?” he goes on with an easy smile. Brienne mentally scolds herself.

_Stubborn._

_Foolish._

_A failure._

_Freak._

“Hey, try to stay awake,” Jaime demands, lightly tapping against her calf. Brienne tilts her head away from the voices inside her head, back to Ser Jaime.

“Sorry.”

“Not that again,” he sighs, sounding annoyed.

Brienne opens her mouth to say something, but only wet coughs come out this time. She screws her eyes shut. This hurts more than she thought it would. Already back when Thoros pushed her head underwater… she thought it was going to be a gentle death.

But perhaps it’s the fact that she is indeed… alive. And life seems to hurt all the while.

“… I think we should make camp now,” Jaime says, wincing in sympathy.

 _This does not sound good_ , he thinks to himself. _If she didn’t die of drowning, it might well be this that will cost her her life even now._

Brienne’s eye widen, cold fear clutching at her, licking at her marred cheek with a slick, icy forked tongue.

_No, no, no. What if the Brotherhood comes and gets Ser Jaime? Then all of this would be for nothing._

“No.”

“Yes. You need some rest. And we need to dry our clothes. We should be far enough away. And anyways, why would they come looking for you? They think you’re dead,” Jaime argues.

 _For good reason, because you were_ …

Jaime bites his lower lip. _Not now_.

 _Why is he so kind to me,_ Brienne thinks to herself _. Why does he care? He is not supposed to care. No one is…_

“We should… keep going,” she insists, no matter how much it strains her.

“Since this is _my_ horse, I say how far Honor goes. And that’s as far as Honor goes,” Jaime points out to her.

_Honor? He named the horse Honor?_

Brienne doesn’t get to think further about this, since Ser Jaime pulls on the reins to lead a bit away from the stream, into the woods. They reach a small clearing.

“That should do for now,” he says, glancing around, but then moves up to the horse, clapping it on the rear once, before his hand brushes across her body. Brienne can do nothing but shiver.

“Alright, do you think you can help a little with the knot? It was difficult to make one with one hand, so while you’re awake…”

Brienne blinks. _Oh, right_ , he tied her up to keep her from falling over. Brienne takes a moment before sitting up slightly, the strain it causes her notwithstanding, and clumsily undoing the knot.

“Just slide down the horse as slowly as you can. We better don't risk further injury.”

Brienne blinks, but her body moves before she can even think about it. Though her moves are still rather sluggish and clumsy. She manages to swing one leg over the horse’s back and then slides down. Gladly, she is tall enough for her feet to reach the ground fast enough, but once she stands, her knees almost give way underneath her. To her surprise, she finds a hand in her back steadying her.

“As I said, take your time. I don’t plan on dragging you around yet again.”

_Yet again?_

Oh, that’s right, Ser Jaime must have gotten her on the horse as she laid unconscious.

 _How did he manage, though_ , she wonders. _I am too big to be carried around. That’s only what knights do with frail maidens and princesses. And I am most certainly neither frail nor a princess._

“Alright, then let’s get you over to the tree and sit you down,” he goes on, his voice so calm that it’s oh to soothing to her aching body.

Brienne can’t even begin to think about the entire situation as he hooks her arm around him to guide her over the nearest oak to help her sit down against it.

_Why is he kind to me?_

_Why is he still here?_

_And why am I still here – and with him?_

_This must be a dream again._

“I’ll go find some firewood,” he says, searching her eyes once to offer a crooked smile before straightening back up.

Brienne tilts her head wordlessly as she watches Jaime walk away quickly, though she notes that he doesn’t go too far. While she won’t say it aloud, she is glad that he doesn’t leave her sight, however selfish that may be.

He soon returns with some twigs he puts in a pile, kneels down and takes out what looks like firestones. Brienne watches for a moment, but then realizes that he’ll have his dear trouble igniting a flame with one hand missing.

_I took it, the golden hand… He’ll surely hate me for that ever the more._

“Seven Hells!”

Brienne scrambles over to where Jaime is trying to get the stones to produce sparks. Once he hears her move, he whips his head around, “You are supposed to stay right where you are, wench.”

“You’ll only set yourself on fire like that,” Brienne argues, though her voice does little to support her, since she can do nothing but cough towards the end again.

“And _that_ is why you’re supposed to stay put.”

“The sooner you let me do it, the faster we have fire, Ser,” Brienne argues.

Jaime grunts, muttering some curses under his breath before begrudgingly handing the stones over to her. Brienne’s hands slightly shake, but she still manages to produce the needed spark to bring forth a small flame within two tries. Jaime quickly adds some more dry leaves to make the flame bigger.

_Even **that** I can’t do for her…_

“… So now that this is dealt with,” Jaime says, straightening up. “You’ll strip out of your clothes.”

“W, what?!” she stammers, her blue eyes almost exploding, but no less did Jaime expect from her. Leave it to her to strip him naked as he lays unconscious, but she herself? Gods forbid, she’d probably rather freeze to death.

_Stupid thing._

“Don’t look at me like I’m talking Valyrian. You’re chilled to the bone. If you won’t die of that cough you seem to get, you’ll die of the chill. And best way to prevent the latter from happening is to get your clothes to dry and see to it that you are close to the fire,” Jaime argues. “I may not be as much of a wild child as you were back in the days, to know all the plants in the world, but I do know one or two things about these matters as well.”

Brienne can’t help the shiver running up and down her spine. She is too cold to even blush right now.

“No worries, you can use the linen you cloaked me in after you knocked me out to cover yourself. Though then again… it’s not like I haven’t seen all of that already, so…,” he says with a tease, though it falls flat somehow.

Brienne lets out a small gasp, though that only earns her another round of coughing.

“And _that_ is why you should leave it be with those gasps of exasperation,” he huffs, if slightly amused before handing her one of the big linen blankets. Brienne quickly grabs it to cover up her body except for her face before starting on her clothes.

Jaime occupies himself with binding Honor to one of the trees, though he has a watchful eye on the wench as she undresses. He can’t help the small smile. He’s never seen someone struggle like that. It’s as though clothes were a threat to her the same way they are her only means of protection. She is so much at war with everything, it’s odd to believe that she could ever be at peace with something.

First the tunic, then the breeches are tossed out of the bundle of linen she surrounds herself with, as though the linen was trying to spew out the clothes. She puts them close enough to the flame to dry, but far away enough not to catch fire, before pulling the line around herself as much as possible. Jaime chooses that moment to come back into her periphery.

Normally, he would have taken more pleasure in a tease, but right now, he can’t really bring himself to it. The images of her body being tossed around by the current swim before his eyes way too presently still.

Jaime shakes his head before distracting himself with taking off his own shirt – the trousers more or less dried from the walking, to put the tunic near the flames to dry as well. He doesn’t even have to look up to hear the sharp intake of air from the wench.

“Again, nothing you haven’t…”

“I know. I was just surprised,” Brienne replies defensively.

“Of what? That I also need warmth? Or that I jumped into the river to pull you out in the first place,” he snorts.

“I was just surprised, that’s all,” Brienne argues with a little more urgency this time.

_He jumped into the river to save me._

_Ser Jaime saved me._

_Again._

_Why does he keep saving me?_

“… I suppose you understand that I have some _pressing_ questions regarding… all this here,” Jaime goes on, trying to find a more or less comfortable position on the dry leaves.

“Yes.”

“And I do hope you will finally offer some explanations. I get it that you couldn’t tell me back then, but now… well, here we are.”

He _gets_ it? Brienne doesn’t get it herself half of the time…

She takes a moment to gather herself. She sucks in a deep breath before she speaks up in a shaky voice, “… As I said, I… it wasn’t that I meant you harm, it was about Lady Stoneheart and…”

“You need not repeat what you told me back in the camp. I got all that. I just want to understand how it comes that I had to fish you out of the river,” Jaime interrupts her.

 _Dead_ , he wants to add, scream, but then can’t. The word won’t come out of my mouth.

 _Dead_! _She was dead!_

Brienne bites her lower lip as the images return to her, flood back into her like saltwater.

Jaime glances over to her, seeing her distress. Perhaps it’s better to initiate the conversation further. Brienne usually responds to that better.

“… Did you lose a fight? Did you jump into the river to save yourself? Did they push you in during a fight?” Jaime questions, running through the options that came to mind as he mulled the situation over. His best guess was that it was either an accident or a cruel way the Brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart sought out to take her life.

“No, no fight,” Brienne shakes her head, averting her gaze.

_He expected more of me. That I go down fighting. And I ran away._

_A failure._

_Coward._

“What?” Jaime frowns.

There _must_ have been a fight, or else…

“There was no fight,” Brienne repeats, coughing again.

“Then you jumped to save yourself.”

That has to be the explanation, because of it isn’t, that means…

“No, not to save myself.”

“Then _what_ , Brienne?” he asks.

He cannot even fathom that as an option, not after she dropped that stone on Robin Ryger, after she fought that bear, after she went as far as to lie to him and poison him to carry out some task. It cannot be that she… or can it?

“… I was drowned,” she says, her voice barely carrying over to him.

“You were drowned,” he repeats, trying to taste the words on his lips, and finding them nothing but bitter and cold on his tongue.

_Drowned. She was drowned. Because of me. She drowned because of me. She drowned. Drowned. Drowned._

“Thoros, one of them, though he seems to be a good man for all I know, he… he’s pushed my head underwater until I moved no more. I, I reckon he let go at some point and I was swept away by the current,” she explains, struggling to speak, not just due to the images assaulting her mind, but because her voice barely allows her to speak. Her chest hurts to the point that she wants to scream.

“… You think the guy who drowned you is a _good_ man? I mean, fine, I'm the Kingslayer, so I am perhaps not the one to judge, but…,” he snorts, but Brienne interrupts him, “I asked him for it.”

“You _asked_ him to drown you?” Jaime questions, disbelievingly.

_Gods be good, has the woman gone insane?_

Jaime never understood past a certain point why she’d risk so much for him, or even go on that quest also for his bloody honor, but to think that she’d still see the good in the man who’s drowned her? How far is that woman from the face of reality?

And how is it that he didn't manage to exorcise that demon from her? Maybe that would have prevented something.

Maybe if one had done this or that… what if one had done this or that… all those variables of the past that are already constants in that they did not take place.

“Not like that, it’s… This is… it’s complicated,” Brienne argues, screwing her eyes shut.

Now that she says it, it sounds ever the more foolish.

Didn't Thoros call her a fool?

Was he right all along?

_Probably._

_Foolish thing._

_Stupid._

_Freak._

“It _must_ be because it makes no sense,” Jaime huffs.

_How dare she ask someone to kill her?_

_How dare she die?_

“It does. It’s just… you see… I returned to Lady Stoneheart to, to present her the body of the man who brought me to your camps. The man I’ve… the man I’ve killed. And I told them that this was you,” Brienne explains, her voice betraying her continuously as memories flood back into her mind.

“… So _that’s_ why you took my clothes and my hand,” Jaime concludes.

_At last an explanation to **that** mystery! _

“I saw no other way to tell the lie. Had I brought him in his own clothes, who would have believed me?” she asks.

At some point she still can’t believe she managed to lie to both Ser Jaime and the Brotherhood.

She is no good at lying, she never was. Too honest and dumb to be any good at playing or charming people. Or else she’d be married and be heiress of Tarth now, cradling a baby to her flat chest. But she wasn’t ever good at lying or charming, so it remains a mystery to her how she ever succeeded with her plan.

“No one, that’s for sure. Though I must say I was still shocked that you took my hand,” he snorts.

_I must give the wench that much – reckless though it was, that was smarter than I took her plan to be._

“I am sorry,” she says bowing her head.

“Stop apologizing,” Jaime grunts.

“Sorry.”

“ _Brienne_.”

“… _sorry_.”

Jaime just shakes his head.

_Stubborn wench._

_She saved me from Lady Stoneheart and her men by lying to them, by selling the other man as me._

_She lied for me._

_Not **to** me. _

_But **for** me. _

“My task was to bring you to her and kill you… I, I said that I had to kill you before because you fought back. Thoros helped me sell the lie. He, he was supposed to examine the body and testified for me, even though he knew it wasn’t you. For that, Lady Stoneheart was willing to… to let Ser Hyle and young Podrick go, but…”

“ _But_?” he asks once she pauses.

That is the moment, that is the why he is seeking.

The why he needs.

“Only under the premise that I give her security for it that this is you. I had to vouch for it in some way. I, I had no security other than my word, but what’s that worth? I… I said I’d be at her service for that… well, and my service to her was that I gave my life for the matter, in the fashion I… chose. And I chose drowning,” Brienne goes on, finding it more and more difficult to force the air out of her lungs, only to let out a small coughing fit.

Jaime just looks at her, his mouth standing open.

 _What_?

“… You mean to tell me that you asked them to drown you to give weight to your word that I am dead?” Jaime asks slowly.

_Gods be good, this better be wrong._

_Say that I am wrong, Brienne. Tell me that I just misunderstood. Say it already! Prove me wrong! Please!_

“… or else she may have grown suspicious and may have sent to find you anyway. And Ser Hyle and young Podrick… I didn’t know what else to do,” Brienne argues, averting his gaze, her voice no more than a whisper.

 _So it is true_ , Jaime thinks to himself, feeling his phantom hand clenching to the point that he is sure he’d draw blood if it was still there.

“Offer your service and work for her and play along until I would have come, perchance?” he retorts, gesturing wildly, feeling hot anger boiling up in the pit of his stomach.

Brienne blinks at him.

 _What_?

“It didn’t cross your mind that this may have been a smarter option?” Jaime goes on.

_How stupid were you, Brienne? How far out of your mind were you? I know I gave some many reasons not to trust me, but that you go that far because you don’t…_

“I didn’t think you’d…,” she mutters breathlessly.

“That I’d _come_? Do you still think that badly of me?” Jaime curses.

_After all they have been through together…_

“What?! _No_. Please. I… I didn’t mean it like that,” Brienne argues vehemently, her throat feeling as though it was on fire.

“Right,” he huffs.

_So much to that…_

“Ser Jaime, I didn’t think you’d come because I lied to you. I didn’t think you’d come _because_ _I betrayed you_. I thought all was done after that betrayal. I never expected… I never even dared to believe… _that’s_ why. Not because you…,” Brienne says in a surprisingly strong voice, though that only earns her another coughing fit.

Jaime can’t help but frown at her. Brienne is rarely that thin-skinned that he can remember. This is the first time he can hear her clarifying such a matter. Usually, she keeps to herself all the while.

_What happened to those walls?_

And while it makes him glad that she didn’t question his honor for once, it saddens him all the same that this was the outcome of it nevertheless.

_She just didn’t think someone would come for her…_

“Fine, fine. I understood. No need to get upset,” he eventually says in an effort to reassure her. “I apologize for… raising my voice. Now’s not the moment for anger.”

He should better not try to upset her, or else things will only get worse.

And he can’t have her die again.

He cannot chance it.

_Never again._

Though at the same time he can’t help but wonder. Brienne thinks he wouldn’t come after one small lie on her behalf. And she set forth on a mission for his honor after he literally tried to kill her. May it be that she really has so little self-worth?

_Do you think of yourself so little truly, Brienne?_

“I didn’t think there was a way out. And I didn’t want to work for Lady Stoneheart and her men. They are evil. I didn’t… I couldn’t. So…,” she mutters, and Brienne just wants this conversation to stop. She wants all of this to stop. It only makes her want to cry, and she can’t cry in front of Ser Jaime.

“Death seemed the only option to you,” Jaime concludes solemnly, trying to understand her reasons, despite the fact that he cannot accept them.

“Yes.”

“What happened to the whole ‘you must live’?” he can’t help but ask.

“… I didn’t think it applied to me the same way…,” Brienne mutters, trying hard not to stare at him.

_Back in the dream, he asked me the same thing…_

“You still have to carry out some vengeance, don’t you?” he argues. “Renly and all?”

Brienne’s features drop even more, much to his dismay. He hoped that this would spark up something within her, after all, Renly was usually the one to bring her out of any sort of stasis, but it only seems to douse the flame in her eyes.

Gods be good, is he _so_ bad at reading people really?

“I, I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything right now. I just knew that… that I didn’t want to live like that and that maybe that would be the best way to ensure your and the others’ safety. I… I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” Brienne replies frantically.

_I just wanted that pain to stop!_

“Except for you.”

 _A small price_ , she thinks to herself.

“I hoped that drowning would be least painful.”

“Was it?” he asks numbly.

Brienne shrugs her broad shoulders. The cold had hurt, right in her bones. The air that burned in her chest as it left her. How her muscles contracted and thrashed. Everything hurt.

“So… they believe me dead, and they believe you now dead, too. Is that correct?” Jaime asks, trying to turn both their minds to other matters.

“Presumably,” Brienne replies, nodding slowly.

“Hm… for us, that’s a clear advantage, other than being alive, that is,” Jaime goes on, his voice purposely easier.

“Why?” Brienne asks, blinking at him, finding her body relax a bit, just like she finds her breath a bit easier in her chest.

“That means they won’t go looking for us. Which implies that we can find ourselves someplace to get you to a healer and the like.”

“Ser, you need not worry about…”

“I will have none of that,” he quips.

“But…”

“Seven Hells, Brienne, you just said it yourself, you drowned. You _drowned_. You need to see a healer, there is no way around it and I don't want to hear you object,” Jaime says, unable to contain himself.

She was _dead_. He held her in his arms and she was dead. And now he is not supposed to make sure that she recovers?

_You were dead in my arms and you expect me to let that happen another time around, woman?_

“It isn’t safe. The common people may well report to them,” Brienne argues. “We don’t know who is with them.”

She made that mistake once, and see where it got her.

“I understood that we have to be careful. That still doesn’t change a thing about the fact that we need to see you to a healer, better sooner than later.”

“It’s not worth…”

This is not worth it.

_I am not worth it._

“What did I just say?” he repeats in a flat voice.

She doesn’t get to argue the point, easy as that.

“It's just a cough and a chill.”

“You were dead,” he says.

_There, I’ve said it._

_And the words taste bitter._

“I was…,” Brienne looks at him with wide eyes. Her big blue eyes full of shock.

“You were dead. There was no heartbeat, no breath. You were _dead_. Tell me again how that is _nothing_ ,” Jaime says angrily.

“I…”

“Or rather, don't tell me. I don't want to hear any further reasons on your behalf. This is out of question. The only question we have to ask ourselves is what option is the best to make sure that this does not happen again,” Jaime says.

 _Leave me here and run_ , Brienne thinks to herself bitterly. _Run as fast as you can and don't turn back. I will only slow you down, bring you down. I almost did with Lady Stoneheart…_

“You need to return to your men. The Brotherhood will likely announce your demise in a great sort of manner. They will go boasting about it, I’m sure. It may have great consequences for your House and the Kingsguard, were they to learn that you are dead.”

“I am aware of that, but the problem is that you said they have spies around the camps in Riverrun. The moment we come to there, the news will reach back to the Brotherhood – and they’ll be chasing you and me again. Needless to mention that the there are enough settlements around Riverrun that may hold people who will report back to them before we ever come even close to the castle.”

“Unless you go on your own,” Brienne argues.

“Hm?”

“If you go off on your own, you can make sure that you are protected by your best and most able men,” Brienne argues. “In those rags… they may not realize you there.”

“And why wouldn’t you be coming with me in that alternative?” Jaime frowns. She could come along, no bother.

“I will slow you down,” Brienne explains simply.

“Well, if we were to reach the camps a few days sooner or later would hardly make a difference.”

“Unless the news of your demise are put forth to the King and your family,” Brienne argues.

“And won’t they be thrilled to hear that I am alive after all?” he huffs.

Tommen might be somewhat upset, perchance… but Cersei? Would she even care? Probably not. It’s still not out yet if she isn’t dead already. And even if she is not… she’d like burn the letter the same way he burned hers.

“I don't find it wise,” Brienne urges him.

“I don't find it wise to leave you here and ride off on my own. I see more trouble with going to the camps per se. It might well be that they have their spies not just in the camps but further around. One might be fast enough to give the news back to the Brotherhood to take us back into custody before we ever reach the camps. Needless to mention that they might parade ‘my body’ to the camps to present to all people there, which means that a good number of them might travel there… and I am still not swift enough with the sword to fight that many. So it seems that the camps in general are dangerous territory right now. Best would probably be if we reached Casterly Rock, but that’s quite a travel,” Jaime goes on, thinking aloud. He runs his left over his chin, contemplating.

“If you give the area wide enough a berth…,” she mumbles, but he corrects her with emphasis, “ _We_.”

“Ser, I…”

“I won’t have that argument with you, wench.”

“But it’s…,” she means to say, but he doesn’t let her, “Not another word, unless you can tell me any other option but the one where I leave you here to your own misery and ride off on my own to reach the camps a bit faster or bypass all the spies around us. I’m all ears for anything else but this.”

Brienne bites her lower lip.

“Thought so. So now, it seems that we can’t go to the camps right now. It seems that Casterly Rock is too far away. We can’t go to the nearby towns because they might spy for the Brotherhood… I’m inclined to say that we are quite in a bit of trouble. So you tell me, where did you send that ominous Hyle and young Podrick to? Because that presumably is a location you deemed safe enough,” Jaime goes on.

“That’s, uhm, I don’t know if they are indeed there. I gave Ser Hyle only a hint, but…,” Brienne says, her voice trailing off.

“And what location did you _hint_ at, then?” he asks, growing impatient.

She is surely trying to get around it to somehow convince him to ride either to the Rock or Riverrun on his own.

_But not with me, wench, not with me._

“Ser, I really do think that…,” Brienne tries once more, but Jaime just cuts in again, “I don’t care, just tell me the name already. Gods, Brienne, don’t be so difficult.”

“Quiet Isle,” she blurts out before she can even think another time.

“ _Quiet Isle_ … hm, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen this place but on a map,” Jaime frowns, glad she finally said it, though the prospect of some place where he doesn’t know anyone who might be an ally to them doesn’t sound much more promising than wandering through the woods in the hope to just stumble upon Casterly Rock.

“We were there… while we searched for Lady Sansa. It’s by the Trident,” Brienne says.

“And we happen to be travelling along one of its forks. Isn’t that convenient?” he chuckles.

Maybe it’s not the worst of plans after all.

“It’s the opposite direction of where you’d need to go,” Brienne argues.

“Well, and we just ruled out those options. I can send a raven from there all the same.”

“No, you must not. What if the raven’s intercepted?” Brienne argues with urgency in her voice.

“True again. But we’ll find the means necessary there, I’m sure. Perchance that’s the best option. You say it’s safe there?” he asks.

“I hope. One can never know,” Brienne shrugs.

She also thought the inn was safe…

“True again. I reckon no place is safe right now. But that seems to be the best. We’re already on the right track. We just have to follow the river. That seems easy enough. I think with some thirty more miles compared to the camps are doable, if I remember correctly from the maps… If we ride fast, we might make it in a few days’ time. Honor’s one fine horse,” Jaime contemplates.

Though a few days are still too many to his liking. He’d rather see her to a healer right now, but they can’t trust anyone around here.

“And perchance we can get a ship from there. All’s possible. I just think we’ll bypass trouble best if we stay away from where they have their hideout, or where we know that they have their spies. They’ll hardly have them on the sea, right?” Jaime goes on, the idea manifesting itself inside his head as more and more of a plan. They can surely work out a plan from there. They just have to get there first, but then… Brienne would get the help that is required, and he can think of the next steps.

_This is… not good, but better than nothing. They have to be frugal with hopes, but that is truly not… nothing._

While he isn’t sure about Quiet Isle either, it seems the less threatening option at this point. They have to go somewhere. The woods aren’t safe. The towns aren’t safe. In fact, there is no place that’s safe, but some seem safer than others. And one that she visited before without harm done seems a better choice than a part of the spider’s net.

“Splendid, then this is decided,” he concludes at last.

“But…,” Brienne means to object, but Jaime is having none of it, “ _It’s. Decided._ And you can now sport a sour expression for until we get there, but there is no way in the Seven Hells that you get your will with that idea of yours.”

 _He doesn’t trust me, that must be it,_ Brienne thinks to herself bitterly.

But to tell the truth, Brienne wouldn’t trust herself either in such a situation. She must seem like she lost her mind, and at some point she is not entirely sure if she didn’t indeed. The way he looks at her now… she must have gone insane.

“Will you run away?” he asks suddenly.

“What?”

“Will you run away? I think the question was easy enough,” Jaime repeats.

“Why would I run away?” Brienne asks.

“Off to Lady Stoneheart again, if you believe that I should leave you here,” Jaime shrugs.

“No,” Brienne shakes her head.

_If I run… he’ll… he might come after me again, for **some** reason._

“Good. Then I’ll check the area a bit and you stay put,” Jaime says, getting back to his feet.

“But…,” she means to object, straightening up slightly.

“Do you want to wander around naked, really?” he snorts, nodding at her still wet clothes. Brienne buries her head in the linen, shivering. And if she weren’t as cold as she is, she’d be as red as a tomato, of that she is sure.

“Just what I thought. Just don’t do anything stupid,” Jaime says as he takes his shirt, which already dried.

_Like dying, again._

_Like leaving…_

“… As you say,” Brienne mutters into the fabric, not daring to look at him. Jaime lets out a small laugh before he goes to walk around their small camp a bit, wanting to be certain that there is just them.

Brienne glances at the flames dancing a bit like the wheat stems in her dream. She tentatively dares to pull her hands out of the linen to hold closer to the flame.

_Warm._

Once Jaime is out of the wench’s sight, he stops by a tree with white bark and leans against it, the air suddenly catching in his throat. His eyes open wide as it comes washing over him again. The sight of her dead body being swept away by the current, her forlorn face as she told him of her home short before he passed out, the blue that should have been in her eyes suddenly being in her lips, the absence of a rising and falling of her flat chest, the cold of the stone, the cold of the water, the cold of her body where there used to be the warmth that made him hold on to life itself when he was ready to give up, the desperation and the dread, mingled with the pain that came with the admissions she just made, mixed with the truths that slipped from her mouth perhaps in a strained voice, but holding no less impact to knock him off his feet.

_She let herself be drowned._

_Because of me._

_Because she didn’t think I’d come._

_She died._

_Brienne died._

And as many times as he wished her dead in the beginning of their quest, he can no longer put the words in the same sentence without a shiver running up and down his spine.

_Those words do not belong together. They should not. Must not. Ever again._

Jaime leans his forehead against his arm, sucking in the much needed air.

The thoughts drown him, and that even though the river is a few yards away from him.

But then he gathers himself, pulls his head back to glance at the woods again, his left hand gripping the white tree bark tight enough to rip out some pieces with a crunch. He doesn’t care about the small throbs of the pain from the scratches on his hand reopening, he welcomes the sensation.

_For as long as you feel pain, you are alive._

_And sadly, for as long as she feels pain at every breath she takes, the truth remains that her pain means she isn’t dead._

_She died, but she isn’t dead yet._

_She isn’t dead._

Jaime lets out a deep sigh before pushing away from the tree, ignoring the small smears of blood he left there. The rain will wash it off soon enough.

A crow caws someplace, but Jaime isn’t bothered by it. He carries on walking around, his eyes drifting back to the camp again and again.

_Just to make sure._

Jaime glances up in the air, past the red leaves of the tree, to the stretch of grey in the sky.

The rain will come far sooner than he’d hope, Jaime reckons. He’ll have to see about finding a way to shelter them from the rain, or else matters will only get worse.

He can already smell the petrichor in the distance.


	7. Bandages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime learns some lessons about herbs - and other things. 
> 
> Brienne gets some other lessons and stories to listen to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking around and kudoing and commenting. You are such a kind readership. ♥

Jaime straightens up from his crouching position, wrinkling his nose at the meager yield that came from at least half an hour of searching for something to eat. He managed to hunt down some rabbits and squirrels, but Brienne has more and more trouble eating solid foods because of her aching throat, which means they can only make a broth of it. And she probably need some other things to keep her nourished. So he hopes that some of those berries and plants will do. You can make a mush out of these with ease, or so he reckons.

Jaime can’t say that he is very used to this, though. He never had to tend to someone that way. If his brother or sister got sick, they had the Septas or the healers come to ensure that all of Lord Tywin’s children enjoyed best treatment and soon enough best health as well. If at all, Jaime paid visits to them during that time. But he never had to nurse someone back to health. Needless to mention that he has no illusion about it that the only way to get her back to health is to see her off to a healer. The cough only got worse and the chill is still on her, no matter how close she gets to the flame of the campfire. And it starts to worry Jaime more than a lot, to say the least.

What worries him about just as much is her behavior, however. If he didn’t know her firmly settled on the ground, Jaime would still think she is drifting away on the river, if only inside her head. While she is mostly conscious these days, and only blacks out now and then, her eyes are way too often fixed on the water of the river, and Jaime doesn’t know if those glances come with fear or with a strange sort of longing.

Back in King’s Landing he thought all fight had left her upon learning about Cat’s demise, which also brought him to the idea to send her out on a new quest, but looking at her now, it seems like the flame that was little while in King’s Landing was totally doused by the water of the stream.

And Jaime reckons he is truly the wrong person to turn to for encouragement or to ignite that flame again. His jests don’t seem to work on her, jokes won’t help, she only answers to questions, and while he can understand that she doesn’t want to talk, he just sees that whatever he does, it doesn't seem to stir the right reaction in her. Even when he tries to act nice to her, she seems to be frightened by it, like a scared doe with huge blue eyes.

Sometimes it’d be really helpful to know someone who knows her better than he does. Like her father or some friend of hers… maybe they’d know how to bring her to a better spirit, but here Jaime is, and he has to act decently around Brienne not to upset her further. The gods must be playing some cruel japes at their expenses for leaving it to a one-handed Kingslayer with shit for honor and no skills of that field to keep the wench from losing the last of her spirits.

_Because that can’t happen. It mustn’t._

Quiet Isle can’t come soon enough.

Jaime sighs before he makes his way back to camp, purposely sporting an easy smile as he walks over to her.

One thing he _does_ think helps is to give Brienne a sense of being useful. He sees to it that she gets to make the fire and some other small chores that put no strain on her. She always seems somewhat relieved about that. And however meager it may be, Jaime has to build on those shaky pillars at present to keep her eyes away from the river. So bringing those plants, or so he hopes, will work to just that effect.

“Alright, I gathered some… plants and berries. Whatever I could find, pretty much. I reckon some of that should be edible…,” he says as he puts down the stretch of cloth in which he gathered the plants in front of her. Brienne glances at him for a moment.

“Care to sort out?” he asks, simply sitting down next to her by the fire.

It may be ungracious to say, but one upside of her being so weak of the body lately means she is less set on keeping physical distance from him – because that damn well annoys Jaime. 

Brienne glances at the berries, leaves, and other parts of plants. Her fingers brush over them a few times, and it is during those moments that Jaime is a bit fascinated that her big hands can seem so elegant in movement almost. He only saw that when she used her hands to wield a sword, far more expertly than he ever dared possible, but it’s during those moments that it becomes visibly that no matter how mannishly she may walk and talk, she also has another way about herself, a hushed voice an a soft touch.

“Well, two out of ten, I’d say,” she says after a short assessment, her voice weak from the strain.

“ _What_? That can’t be. I recognized at least those three,” Jaime argues, almost exasperated. Truth be told, while he also does it to keep her spirits high somewhat, Jaime likes the small challenge that came with it. He’d try to get as many right as possible, but up to this point… he almost always fails miserably. But Jaime is set on winning. He likes those kinds of challenges.

They distract him of the images of her body drifting in the current.

_Dead._

_No, not dead, not yet_ , he reminds himself.

“Those are mulberries,” Jaime argues.

“They may look like them a bit, but they have a different stem, you see? They are actually poisonous. They may not kill you, but they lead to stomach pains,” Brienne argues.

She reckons that he wants to keep her distracted, and normally, Brienne would resist, but she can’t. She just wants to get lost in the feeling of being cared for, even though she is not deserving of it. There is lightness in those conversations, and it’s lightness that makes it easier for her to breathe.

And at present, that is the one thing she seems to be focused on doing.

Breathing in, breathing out.

“You must be joking,” Jaime grunts, throwing his head back.

At some point it seems that the entire world is poisonous, or at least these damned woods.

Not that this comes as a great surprise to Jaime. He already hates every tree and every leave in that forest, but especially that bloody river for almost taking her away.

“I’m not,” Brienne tells him, though the coughing thins out her voice considerably. “Look, the ones over here are poisonous, but not life-threatening. Just stomach aches, sickness, and the like. This one causes momentary blindness… This one you shouldn’t eat. You can use it to treat insect bites, but that’s it. It tastes awful, that I know for certain. I heard it tastes like curdled milk. This one is lethal if digested in larger quantities. It’ll leave you bleeding out of your mouth till you die. It’s really nasty as far as I heard, because it takes quite long. This one will make your throat swell shut until you can no longer breathe, hence we on Tarth call it the Gag.”

Jaime can't help but wonder if the entire world's poisonous, at least the plants of the earth seem to be.

Brienne points at the last one, her voice almost leaving her as she averts her gaze. “And that one… you should just throw it away.”

“What does the last one do?” Jaime asks, narrowing his eyes at her with a smirk. She is hiding something, he is certain of that. It may be that he didn't see some many things about her and didn’t understand her as well as he thought he did, but those are the things he can read without a doubt.

“It’s not supposed to be eaten. Trust me,” Brienne insists.

 _However much you can_ , she means to say, but doesn’t dare to. _I betrayed you after all, so why would you trust me? I poisoned you before, so why would you trust me if I told you that those are good to eat? Why would you trust me? Why? Why? Why?_

“Now I _want_ to know,” he insists.

“Suffice to say that you shouldn’t eat it,” Brienne argues.

“Will it kill me?” Jaime asks.

“No, not… _necessarily_. Just put it away already,” Brienne argues.

“Well, if it doesn’t kill me, I might just as well try it,” Jaime shrugs. “If it’s only as bad as curdled milk, I should be fine. I have had horse piss before, you might be able to recall.”

“You should not!” Brienne argues vehemently.

“Well, what does it do, then?” Jaime keeps questioning.

“Believe me when I say that you don’t want to know, Ser,” Brienne objects. Jaime lets out a weary sigh.

He has heard that too often.

That he didn’t need to know.

Wasn’t supposed to know.

_But maybe I **want** to know?_

_Maybe I can deal with the truth all the same?_

_And perhaps fare better with it?_

_Just why do people keep things from me? I am actually quite decent keeping secrets… well, except for the one I told Brienne back in Harrenhal._

“Let _me_ be judge of what I want to know or don’t want to know. I’ve had it long enough that people wouldn’t tell me things believing that I didn’t need to know. And it got me in quite some trouble on several occasions,” he says, now with more sincerity in his voice.

“Ser,” Brienne says, now almost pleading.

“I will try it unless you tell me,” Jaime warns her.

“Some men like to use it for… the bedding,” Brienne says at last, screwing her eyes shut.

It takes a moment for Jaime to even register the explanation.

“Wait, what?” he frowns.

Now, that came unexpected.

“It, it… do I have to explain further?” Brienne sighs.

“More than ever,” he grins smugly.

This feels like it did back on the way to King’s Landing, before the Mummers took them, that is. When he jested and she was flustered. And the Gods know that he loved that.

Brienne would like to reduce herself to a puddle and disappear.

She never should have said anything about it, but should have just thrown it away.

_Ser Jaime always detects my weaknesses. He is far better at reading people than I am._

“Some men like to mix it with their ale before they… bed a lady. So that they…,” Brienne says, her voice drifting off, hoping that he’ll just let it go, but of course he does not.

“What?” he asks again, the corners of his lips twitching with a grin.

He knows it's ungracious, but this is just too delicious.

“So that they can do _it_ longer,” Brienne says at last. She would blush if not for the cold, so all she can do is shiver and pull the corners of her mouth down.

“Keeps the cock stiff, then, aye?” Jaime chuckles, amused.

“… So I heard,” Brienne says slowly.

“And who’s told you that? Or did you read that in your books in all secret?” Jaime goes on teasing.

_This is too good._

“No such thing. My Septa told me that,” Brienne argues.

“Your Septa,” Jaime repeats, not really believing it. He knows Septas. They usually smack you with a spoon or wooden stick if you don't do as would be required by the words of the Seven-Pointed Star. At least the Septas he got to know when still younger. And since they are more concerned with the holy union in terms of producing heirs, he can’t imagine that her Septa was kind enough to teach her one or two things about the pleasure of the act.

Tarth truly seems to be a curious place.

“Yes,” Brienne nods.

_I said too much._

_Why do I always say these things?_

_To Ser Jaime of all people?_

_This will only make me a joke again!_

“Why would she tell you about that? To lower your expectations about the true ability of men?” he snorts.

“No, she told me how to find it and the like.”

“Why?” Jaime makes a face.

Now this really doesn’t make much sense.

“Ser, this is a very personal matter, I…,” Brienne stammers.

Why can't she just stop talking already?

“Why did she tell you about that? What were you supposed to do with that certain knowledge?” Jaime asks, now more seriously.

Something doesn't sound right about that. And he doesn’t like the sound of that anymore all of a sudden.

So much to how he can cheer people up.

_Good job, Jaime, good job._

“Back in the day… She said that I may take some along for a possible bedding ceremony, so that… you know…,” Brienne turns her head, hoping that he will just nod and understand already so that she doesn’t have to say.

“So you'd have more enjoyment? I didn’t think Septas were that open about the matter?” Jaime frowns. “I thought one of their primary virtues was that they were… high-necked in all aspects of life.”

“What? _No_. She said I should to… so that the man… even gets to 'the point'. For, for making heirs. Because… well, I’m ugly, you see,” Brienne mutters, drawing her knees to her flat chest, the last words muffled through the fabric of her breeches.

“… She seriously said that to you?” Jaime looks at her, not quite believing it.

“She meant it as a good advice, I suppose,” Brienne shrugs, not daring to look at him.

He’ll laugh now, for sure.

But perhaps it’s good if he does.

Ser Jaime does so much for her, so she should grant him that bit of fun at her expenses.

Words are wind, right?

“And here I thought the maester who forced me to learn to read properly was unkind for hitting me on the fingers when I refused,” Jaime huffs. “That’s some crude behavior, even from a Septa.”

“Crude?”

“Yes, crude. How else would you call it? You are by rights heiress of Tarth. She might be supposed to educate you, but she has no rights to treat a royal like that. You had your Father release her from her services for it, right?” he replies. Had someone said something to that effect to any of Tywin's children, he would have sent that Septa to the other part of Westeros. He never would have accepted a Septa to shame him and his House like that.

“No, why should I? She meant it well…”

“She didn’t mean that well. Your Father should have released her straight away," Jaime argues.

How was that supposed to be "meant well"? Jaime knows that he jests way too much, but there is still a difference between that - and telling a young girl that she's supposed to find herself some herbs so her soon-to-be-husband can keep his cock stiff long enough to make her a child in the belly.

“He didn’t know.”

“Because you didn’t tell him… _of course_.”

“She just meant to prepare me. There’s no arguing that I am… well, what I am," Brienne insists.

She is ugly - and unless the lights are out, there's no way to help that.

“Does that make it right, though?” Jaime questions.

“Hm?”

“Well, you seem to believe me that I killed Aerys to save people, right?” he explains, gesturing.

“Of course," Brienne replies instantly. And Jaime can't help a small flash of a smile.

_Even now she has faith in me, the foolish thing._

“So I know that people have the rights of calling me Kingslayer for it. But would you say that, say, the Brotherhood was right in meaning to kill me for it? Or for what they perceive was my taking part in the Red Wedding?”

“No, of course not.”

For that truth she was willing to die. He may be the Kingslayer, for he has slain a king, but he is not what Lady Stoneheart meant to make of him. And if the people knew of the noble act that came with the act of sin, they’d perchance no longer feel as justified in calling Ser Jaime names, and treating him with scorn for that one act.

“Well, following that same logic, she was not justified in putting that forth to you. No matter that you look like you look like. You are heiress of Tarth, and as such she was to treat you. Like people can’t take it from me that I was knighted, no matter much they hate it that I maintain that honor, no matter what dishonorable acts I committed thereafter," Jaime concludes.

“I am sure she meant it as good advice," Brienne insits. Septa Roelle opened her eyes to the truth.

“And I think therein lies part of the problem. Not all people mean you well, you see? Some people mean you ill. And you can try to find something noble in every act if you squint just hard enough, but some acts are just… of ill spirit.”

_Gods be good, she still tries to see the good in the man who drowned her, probably even in Lady Stoneheart herself, and now even that wicked Septa._

Seven Hells, she seems to see something good in him when Jaime himself is by no means sure if he is deserving of that certainty she seems to have in the goodness of his acts.

“It makes no difference anyways,” Brienne mutters.

“Why?” he grimaces. “Because of that betrothal to Red Ronnet? He’s a little shit. I reckon most others are aware of that.”

“You, you know of Ser Ronnet?” Brienne gapes, the air catching in her throat to the point that she has to cough to gather herself.

_He knows!? He knows how much of a freak I am?! How much of a failure? Isn't it enough that he knows that I failed him with Lady Stoneheart and with Lady Sansa? With Oathkeeper?_

“I made his acquaintance a while back. I can’t really say that we warmed up to each other,” Jaime shrugs. "I sent him away as fast as possible. The little griffin shit."

He can still feel tingling in his stump at the memory of punching that guy. It had felt better than Jaime would ever dare admit out loud.

Gods, rarely did feel something so good.

It was almost as though his hand was back for just that one moment, but just almost.

“A broken betrothal isn’t that uncommon. A lot of ladies have had that experience,” Jaime argues.

Even his sister had, if by circumstance. She would have married Rhaegar Targaryen back in the day, if not for Aerys having opposed it.

“I had three,” Brienne argues.

_A triple freak._

“Three?” he blinks.

And here thought he knew something about her – only to realize that he only knows the half of it, or third of it.

“After that my Father gave up, for good I suppose,” Brienne shrugs her broad shoulder.

“But you are heiress of Tarth no matter what.”

 _Not if he believes me dead…_ , she thinks to herself. _Then I could spare him that additional shame._

“Do you want to go back to Tarth?” Jaime asks after a moment of silence.

Brienne blinks at him, “What?”

“Well, once we reach Quiet Isle, and once you are back to health, you may take a ship to sail back down south, if that is what you want,” Jaime goes on to explain.

_He wants me gone, doesn’t he?_

And Brienne can’t blame him for it. She failed him. She failed the mission. And she betrayed him.

_He tends to me out of obligation._

_Because he has honor._

“I can’t imagine that they’d travel to Tarth only to fetch you, even if they were to find out that you are not dead after all,” Jaime goes on.

She’d be safe there.

Her Father wouldn’t see further harm being done to her.

She’d be protected.

So this wouldn’t ever happen again.

So that she wouldn’t ever drift dead in the water again.

_You'd be safe._

Suddenly, Tarth, though he’s never seen it with his own eyes, seems like a shining beacon on a map. She’d be safe there, so perhaps that’s really the best way to bring her to. To safety. Away from all of that badness here. From all the poison that seems to run in the ground, making lethal potions out of almost all plants, making the world hostile to life itself.

“… Perhaps. And even if, they’d… they’d have to land there first,” Brienne agrees solemnly.

Perhaps it’s really for the best.

She should have listened to the Elder Brother already back in the day, but she did not. And see where it got them all.

So maybe going back to Tarth is the only option she has left now. She may return a disgrace and may only have the hope left that her Father has sired a new sibling during her absence to take over Evenfall Hall in her stead. Then he could save himself the shame of trying to make a politically favorable match and marry her off to whoever, or maybe just leave her a maiden for the rest of her days to reside in Evenfall Hall. She wouldn’t have more chance of destroying other people’s chances of peace and honor for the matter.

“Do you _want_ to go home?” he asks.

_Because if you do, I’ll see to it that the next best ship is ready for you to leave this bloody hell behind._

Brienne wants to say yes and mean it, but she can’t bring herself to it. Instead, she gives a shrug.

What does it matter what she wants? She poses a danger. That won’t stop until she is out of harm’s way. What does it matter what she wants for as long as it serves an overall purpose? Had she died back in the river, it still wouldn’t have made a difference in the world’s course, no matter what her dreams try to make her believe.

“… I don’t mean to say that you have to or so,” Jaime adds quickly with a grimace.

He hoped that this would cheer her up. She spoke of Tarth so fondly all the while…

Truly, the gods must have great fun at their expenses.

“It might be for the best, though,” Brienne argues.

For _his_ best for sure.

“As I said, if you want to go home, then surely it’s for the best, but _only_ if you want to,” Jaime argues.

Brienne grimaces at him uncertainly.

“Other arrangements can be made, though, I am sure,” he goes on.

 _Like what_ , Brienne wants to ask, but doesn’t. _A post in the City Watch, as you said back when we came to King’s Landing?_

“… Will you return to King’s Landing once it’s safe for you? Will you go home?” Brienne asks instead.

Now it's Jaime who frowns at her.

_Right, King’s Landing. Home.  
_

Just that this didn't feel like home even before he left.

But is he supposed to complain about those matters to Brienne? After what she’s been through, thanks to him no less? Probably not. Better not.

_She died, you suffered some heartache because you didn’t want to see the truth, though it’s been right to your feet all the while, had you opened your eyes. Get yourself together. Now is not your time to sulk. You did that long enough. Wake up._

“… One will have to see, I suppose,” he sighs.

Brienne nods.

_Right, he still has obligations to the Crown, his family… the Queen Regent… his…_

“But… that is no decision we have to make just now, right? We’ll have to see what’s possible from where we are going anyways. So why worry about such an uncertain future, huh?” Jaime adds with a strained grimace.

“Of course,” she agrees solemnly.

Those moments will flit away soon enough.

“Will you need my help for tending to your wounds?” he then asks.

“What? No, I can do that myself,” Brienne replies quickly.

“As you keep saying. Anyway, I will gather some more firewood, then. Boiled and cooled water’s in the bucket… well, you know better how it’s done than I do,” he says before trotting off again. Jaime usually leaves her alone when she follows through her routine of changing the bandages. He tries his best not to startle her, and if something upsets her, then it’s embarrassment, so he learned by now. He really can’t chance to have her get any worse, and that’s damn hard with all of the questions burning on the tip of his tongue.

He wanted to change the bandages one time when she was still almost too weak to stand, but she was so upset about the matter that he feared she’d topple over from the hacks that were her breath by the time. Jaime learned from that experience – and figured it’d be best to let her do as much herself as is possible not to startle her.

Truly, he is no man made for subtlety, while just such would be demanded in such a situation, he is sure. Yet, here he is, trying to balance on that thin rope, trying to find a balance between doing what he knows needs to be done and what seems to bring Brienne to even more turmoil than does pretty much everything surrounding her.

 _Did you really lose your claws, Brienne_ , he can’t help but wonder way too often these days. _Since when are you so very fragile? Or were your claws bird's wings all the while?  
_

But this time, instead of going off to see after Honor or distract himself with some other task, he finds himself staying out of her sight, behind a larger boulder. Jaime can’t even say why exactly he stays this time. All he knows is that suddenly his feet feel stuck to the ground as he observes, watches, as she edges closer to the bucket and slowly starts to remove the bandage covering her cheek.

One layer after the other is peeled away until angry red and fleshy pink distorts her otherwise pale image. Like autumn leaves on a river. It reminds him way too much of the colors his stump had after the Brave Companions took his hand. He can almost feel the color in its angry boiling fire right back on his now healed stump.

Brienne, meanwhile, sucks in a deep breath, which only results in her coughing again. She’d rather just leave the bandage right where it is and try her best to forget about it. She knows what she looks like without, but it still terrifies her somewhat. The healing was better after Thoros’ treatment, but she reckons that the water of the river did no good to any of her recent wounds. She leans her head over the makeshift bucket to glance at her own reflection to inspect the injury – and before Brienne can even think it through, her head pulls away abruptly as though a bolt of lightning ran right through her.

 _It looks even **worse** now. This might be infected_ , she thinks to herself as her arms involuntarily hug her legs to her flat chest. _If it’s infected, then that means…_

Brienne cannot control it as hot tears start to well up in her eyes and all she can do is try to hide them in the fabric of her breeches, making as little sounds as possible.

_Pathetic._

Why does she keep being surprised at what glances back at her in the looking-glass? Why does she even care if she dies of infection? What does any of this matter to the point that she can’t help but cry? Only the pretty maidens get to cry so the shining knight may hold out a handkerchief to them to dry their silly little tears. And even if not, now is not the time.

_What would Ser Jaime think of me if he saw me crying like this?_

_And why do I cry anyway? This is nothing I haven’t seen yet. And if I died now or tomorrow, then Ser Jaime would probably be better off. He could go home far faster_.

No matter what sweet lies the dreams may feed her, life’s bitter and as concerns her own little, unimportant life – perhaps it doesn’t even have a taste because it’s so meaningless.

_I am ugly. Now I am uglier. What does it matter? Stop crying already! Stop! Just stop already!_

Brienne knocks her balled fist against her forehead again and again.

_Stop now._

_Stop._

_Stop._

_Stop crying._

_Stop already!_

_Just stop!_

_Why don’t you just stop?!_

Brienne wants to knock sense into her head another time, but when she expects her fist to make contact with the already aching stretch of skin of her forehead, she finds her wrist in midair. Brienne looks up slowly to see a hand wrapped around her wrist, lifting it a bit against the light, momentarily blinding her.

“Now, I don't think this is how you change bandages.”

Brienne’s mouth still stands open as she looks at Jaime, who still has his hand wrapped around her wrist to the point that she can’t struggle from his grasp, “Please, Ser, I cannot… not right now, please. Please just go. It is… I just need a moment.”

“To hit yourself? I don’t think so,” he snorts.

“Please. Just don’t mock me now, Ser. I beg you,” she pleads, not even caring how much of a fool that makes her.

“I am _not_ mocking you. I am asking you to stop hurting yourself. Seven Hells, Brienne,” Jaime grunts angrily.

Why does she always think that he is mocking her when he means something in earnest?

He knows he mocked her cruelly some many times, but she knows him a bit now, doesn’t she?

He doesn’t mean to mock her.

He just wants to prevent harm. Can’t she see that?

_Why don't you see it? Hear it?_

“I…”

“What is the matter? Is the wound hurting so badly or…,” he questions, his voice drifting off.

And only now it dawns on her that he _sees_.

_He sees me. All of that ugly bite, marred skin and…_

She tries to struggle away from his touch, but she cannot, her muscles are too strained, too tight.

“Brienne. You need to tell me what is wrong. If you feel pain, we have to do something about that.”

“No. It’s…”

“Is the wound infected?”

Brienne opens her mouth to reply, but then cannot. She only manages a small nod, averting her gaze.

Jaime lets out a sigh.

That is truly the last thing that they needed. He hoped that the constant cleaning would help the cause, but the trouble is that the river’s water isn’t clean at all.

Or rather, the trouble is that she got those wounds in the first place.

… Or perchance more accurately that he ever set her up for this bloody mission in the first place. He really should have given her that post in the City Watch. He could have had an eye on her there.

“Sorry.”

“Would you quit apologizing already?!” he barks angrily, fed up with her constantly litany of “sorry” and apologies that keep dribbling out of her when it’s least needed. “We have to think about how to make sure this doesn’t get any worse. So now, you know all those lethal plants. There _must_ be some herb or root or berry that we can use to help slow the process down or at best stop it.”

Brienne just looks at him, not knowing what to think or say. She is too idly focused on his hand around her wrist, the warmth seeping through his skin, and her own foolery for still holding on to something she was so very willing to throw away to know him safe.

“Brienne! Focus on me now. This is important,” he demands more harshly.

He’d rather not yell at her, but she has that gaze again, the one she has when she looks upon the river with longing. And he is fed up with it. He never wants her to look like that again, Seven Hells.

“… I, I think over there, the small bush with the yellowish berries. The leaves can… they can be put on the wound… to help fight an infection,” she says, the words tumbling out of her mouth without further thought.

“Good, then I will get those leaves right now. You will sit still and not play stupid again, you hear me?” he warns her.

He rather has her mad at him than this, really.

“I… yes.”

Jaime lets go of her wrist at once, scrambling to his feet before walking over to the bush she pointed to, to gather the leaves in question, hoping that she is not as bad in his recognition of the plants as he is.

If they didn’t have much time anyway, they now have even less.

Once he has gathered as much as he can carry, he walks back over to Brienne and sits down next to the maiden, fully expecting her flinching away this time, as she does, like a scared doe that finds itself in a trap. She is too startled, still.

“Now what?” he asks.

“I can do the rest on my own, Ser,” Brienne mutters.

“What are you going to do?” he demands, not budging, not backing down.

_You are not the only one who can be bloody well stubborn, wench._

“Clean it thoroughly. Put the leaves on the wound. And wrap the bandage around it.”

“I imagine this would be easier with, well, _one_ more hand,” he argues.

“Ser,” Brienne pleads.

She just wants to hide. She wants him to un-see all of this, her, her ugly cheek, everything.

“I will have none of that, no matter how much you insist. Just let me help you already, why is that so difficult for you?” Jaime retorts.

Does she think he can’t because he doesn’t recognize the plants or what is the matter? Why is she still in doubt about his will to help her?

“I am sorry.”

“Not _that_ again,” he rolls his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you that you don’t have a say in this?”

She gets no say in dying, easy as that. Or getting herself close to death again.

He has to force her, that’s the only way to make this stubborn creature move.

Brienne swallows thickly, but then bends over to grab the small piece of cloth she let sit in the water to soak to clean the wound.

“You’ll let me do that. Seems like you can’t properly see what you are up to anyways. C’mon now,” he demands, gesturing at her to hand the cloth over to him.

“What?” she gapes at him.

“Don’t make me wrestle it from your grasp. That fight would put us both to shame and declare me the victor in a few second’s time. Spare us both the trouble and just give it to me. You only need one hand for it, and apparently I have still one to use to just that cause,” Jaime says, purposely keeping his voice calm but determined.

Brienne simply hands the cloth over to Jaime.

 _At last_ , he thinks to himself before he starts to dab the cloth against the tender flesh. Brienne tries her best not to wince.

_Don’t let him see that it hurts you. Don’t let the pain show._

“You’ll tell me when it hurts too much, won’t you?”

“… Of course,” she replies, her voice barely audible.

_Is he inside my head?_

_Or am I just that obvious?_

“Very convincing,” he snorts. “Don’t worry. I don’t take offense. I know I’m still clumsy at best, but at least I can see this properly. They didn’t cut out one of my eyes, did they?”

Jaime doesn’t even look at her as he goes on cleaning her wound, she notes.

“So what exactly bit you? This is very deep,” Jaime grimaces, wincing when he starts to clean out the parts that still look very exposed and angry red. This _must_ hurt.

“A man,” Brienne whispers, trying to keep her eyes open so that the images do not flood back into her. Of Biter and the rain. Of the mud and thunder.

“A _person_ bit you? No animal?” Jaime asks, still not quite believing it. He knows he shouldn’t be surprised at the world’s cruelty, but it still does.

A man did this to her.

He never should have let her out of King’s Landing – or at least should have seen to it that she returns to Tarth with the next best ship. If that is the outcome…

“He had more of an animal, but he… he was a man.”

“Seven Hells,” Jaime mutters.

_And I sent her on that mission._

“I hope you killed him,” he goes on.

“He is dead, yes.”

“Good. Or else I would have required to get out my not really swift sword skills. Biting other people. What insanity must possess people?” Jaime says through gritted teeth.

Though then again, at some point it would have perhaps been oh so sweet to know him alive so he could kill him. Feed him to some dogs or bears.

“I don’t know. He just… did it.”

“One could say it’s a miracle you didn’t have a big infection until now, given that… circumstance,” Jaime goes on.

“The wounds got treated. I reckon the water of the river did harm to the still open parts… and some may have reopened in the water all the same,” Brienne says slowly.

“Looks like it. Might be your face grazed some stones as you… were swept away by the current.”

“Might be.”

“Seven Hells.”

“Seven Hells,” she agrees, her voice trailing off.

“Alright, done,” Jaime says after a while, grimacing at his _work_ , if you will. He really would rather have a healer here right now to do it for him, but it’s no use.

There is just them.

It’s just her and him now.

“Then let’s bandage this properly and hope this works,” he goes on.

Brienne can’t say anything in return, just picks up the stretches of cloth with numb fingers.

All she can think about is that Jaime is still forced to touch that ugly stretch of scarred, infected, marred flesh. That he is forced to touch her in the first place.

_He is disgusted for sure._

She can’t help but flinch as she finds the leaves pressing to the side of her face, but what shocks her ever the more is Jaime’s facial expression once she dares to steal a glance. She fully expected a grimace of repulsion, but as his touch is soft, so seem his eyes.

Brienne mentally scolds herself. She should better get going before it changes, so she starts to wrap the stretches of cloth around her head, as she has done couple of times already, her fingers moving swifter now that they are supposed to carry out a task she is used to, but whenever she wraps the cloth around her wound, or means to, her fingers brush against Jaime’s, and she is shocked every time he doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he is focused on making sure that the leaves cover the wound correctly and even fixes the bandage here and there.

At last Brienne makes a knot into the bandage.

“And the leaves will help?” he asks.

 _They better do_ , he thinks to himself angrily.

“They should,” Brienne replies, shrugging her broad shoulders.

Jaime grimaces pensively.

 _This is all because of me_ , he thinks to himself bitterly. _All because of me and my shit sense of honor. And is not at all worth that piece of flesh she sacrificed for me – among many more. Maybe I saved her from a bear, but only to toss her into the clutches of an even more wicked beast, wearing the skin of a man._

“One other thing?” he says.

“Yes?” she looks at him with big eyes, still red-rimmed from the tears she shed.

 _And he saw all of it_ , she reminds herself. _You stupid thing!_

“You won’t hide that from me, alright?”

“Hide what?” she frowns.

“Injuries, infections, whatever it may be. Or were you going to tell me about this? And now be honest with yourself,” Jaime tells her. Brienne can do nothing but blink at him.

“That’s what I thought. So now, I think this issue can be resolved with something you should be quite fond of.”

“Fond of?”

“I demand that one promise of you. You don’t hide such a thing from me. Or even better, how about we don't hide much of anything, hm? That would make a lot of things far less complicated,” Jaime explains.

How nice it would be if he wasn’t always forced to read between the lines.

How easy it would be if people simply said what they meant and didn’t wrap their words in layers and layers of half-truths and untruths to rip apart before one gets to the core. And with one hand, unwrapping these bundles seems ever the harder.

Gods be good, does he really seek the virtuous truth these days? And wasn’t that what he used to laugh at?

The situation seems to make him silly in the head.

“I… I can promise you that I won’t hide injuries from you, Ser. It was a foolish thing. I was just… shocked, that’s all,” Brienne tells him, the words dribbling out her mouth like lukewarm water.

She’d only make it worse for him, right?

And Brienne just doesn’t want to be even more of a bother anymore.

She just doesn’t want to be a bother.

“And I… _understand_ that. The thing is that you’ll have to let me help you every now and then if we want to make it to Quiet Isle in one piece. There wouldn’t be much sense in the journey if you…,” he stops, the words decaying on his tongue to a bitter mush.

_If you die. Again._

He may have said it once already, but that still doesn’t make it any easier now. The words still feel like lead on his tongue. And truly, it still seems odd coming from a man who wanted to kill her in all earnest some time back. With some oars, even.

“… What matters is that we make it to Quiet Isle. So… promise me not to hide from me in that regard, hm?” he says, pursing his lips.

_Just don’t hide from me._

“… Yes.”

“Good,” he nods. Brienne pulls her knees back up to her flat chest to rest her chin upon them, even though her body initially revolts against the movement because of her aching lungs.

Everything just hurts these days.

Brienne waits for the pulsating sensation of the leaves to begin once the oils in the herb starts to release as she glances at the small fireplace.

Ser Jaime will get up any second now and occupy himself with something else to do, as he did the other days before. She reckons he does it to keep his distance, and Brienne can’t find it in herself to blame him for it. Be it that he wants to know himself apart from her for what she did, lying to him, betraying him, or be it that he just doesn't want to waste his time even more by keeping her uninteresting company. All is his good right.

Septa Roelle used to say that no one would keep her company, if not for her Father’s name and status…

“Have I ever told you about Casterly Rock?” he suddenly says.

Brienne blinks, whipping her head around to find Jaime in just the same spot as before, just looking more… relaxed.

_He doesn’t move away? Isn’t he repulsed enough?_

“Not really…,” she replies slowly, her eyebrows furrowing.

“Pity. It's a nice place, really. The Western coast does have its merits. Especially due to the climate,” Jaime goes on. “I can’t say I enjoy the Northern regions much, as a creature who’s used to jumping into the ocean expecting it to be at just the right temperature.”

“… You do not have to do that, Ser.”

“Do what?” he grimaces.

 _Bother with me_ , she wants to say, but instead she replies, “Waste your time talking to me. My voice is leaving me, so it’s no fruitful discussion really. You can occupy yourself however you please. I won’t do anything stupid, I assure you.”

_You do enough already, more than enough. You don't have to watch me on tops._

“And what indication did I give you that I want to occupy myself another way than this?” he asks her with a snort.

_Can't you see it when I mean something? Or have those few jests and japes made it far too concrete inside your stubborn head that I mean everything along these lines only?_

Brienne grimaces at him.

“I like to talk, or rather, I oftentimes talk when I don’t think I would, but oh well, so be it. You can’t talk much, or rather shouldn’t, so you can at least listen so that I don’t feel like I am talking to myself half the time. That sounds like a decent deal to me,” Jaime tells her. “Needless to say, there isn’t much else to occupy myself with. I am not as much of a wild child as you were back in the day. I don’t feel the urge to venture through the woods to explore Mother Nature’s Castle. So… for the sake of my sanity, could we go with that?”

_Maybe if she knew me better, she’d finally understand that I do mean some things, and that not every word I speak is mockery or jest._

_Maybe if she knew me, she wouldn't look at the river with longing..._

“… Of course,” Brienne says, her mouth barely opening.

“So, back to Casterly Rock, then…,” Jaime says, before going on about the city’s specifics, about Lannisport and the blue waters. About the castle and its huge archways with lion décor on every wooden beam, about the lion you can see in the rocks if you look at it from a distance. About childhood memories. Squiring and jumping from the top of cliffs. Riding horses. Firing stones with slingshots. Trying to find the dragon that some people say resides in the crypts of Casterly Rock. Sneaking away during the night to see a play in the city when the traveling performers came to the Westerlands.

And Brienne listens attentively to all of it, absorbs his words, his voice, because they give her this small feeling of knowing more of him, and however selfish it may be, she’d rather know more about him. It makes her feel like he is sharing a secret with her, even if it’s probably common knowledge to anyone who’d ask.

But he has such interesting stories to tell.

They read like the tales from her children’s books more than once, and the Seven know she loved those books fiercely.

Once night falls and Jaime is done with his stories of Casterly Rock, Brienne drifts off to sleep without much prelude, and for once, she only dreams of the mental images of what she believes Casterly Rock might look like, drifting over Lannisport and all the other places like a bird.

Jaime sees to it that she is covered by the cloth they have to spare for the matter. She looks way too young and, against all odds, almost small when she is sleeping, he notes. Once she draws up her knees, she no longer appears as the giantess she is once she stands.

How old is she again? Way too young to give her life for the likes of him, in the hopes to restore his bloody honor. That much is for sure.

Way too young to get half her face bitten off by some monstrous man, for his bloody honor.

All of that for his bloody honor. The more he thinks about it, the more he is convinced that his honor is not at all worth it. And he doubts that anyone’s honor is worth any of this.

He lies down on his back, right next to her. The good thing is that the wench now sleeps so tightly during the night that she doesn’t realize it when he does – or else she wouldn’t ever stop fussing in the morning. He usually wakes up before her and then moves away not to startle her. That worked pretty well thus far. Because it seems to take just so little to drive her to the breaking point – if a few words or the sight of a small infection bring her to tears – that he can’t chance to let it escalate any further.

Yes, walking a tightrope. That is what this is, and a very tight tightrope, to be sure.

Jaime glances up at the night’s sky, and of course it’s the Moonmaid glancing right back at him tonight, how could it be any different? That constellation seems to want to laugh at him way too often to his liking. Always appearing to him when he feels down.

Jaime shakes his head, turning away from the stars, to lie on his side, facing towards Brienne.

His hand ghosts over her marred cheek, hidden behind leaves and thick bandage now, without touching. He doesn’t want to startle her – or even worse, cause more pain.

 _Is there a way to pay back for that pound of flesh that man took from you by force_ , he wonders. _Or is it just the Gods’ ways again, trying to make fun of us, taking my hand and half your cheek – for whatever grander purpose they seem to have in mind?_

Just how is he supposed to redeem himself for that act, for letting her run off, right into that trap?

All Jaime knows is that he has to make sure that she is safe from now on. The rest? Only the Moonmaid may know perchance. That, however, is the one thing he is most certain of, at least he is so now.

Jaime pulls his hand back as he allows his eyes to close. Soon sleep claims him, too. He dreams of a small isle amidst sapphire blue waters, a place he has never seen before, but seems to offer so much tranquility and safety that he’d like to get lost in it.


	8. Fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne reach Quiet Isle. 
> 
> Complications arise from the fog. 
> 
> Solutions are found within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking around and for commenting and kudoing. You are such a kind readership. *hugs* 
> 
> ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
> 
> I was kind of uncertain if I want to go down the lane the way I had it previously framed... now I'll just roll with it. Let's see what becomes of it. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy anyway! ☺

Jaime shifts in the saddle to spur Honor back into action. The horse doesn’t seem to enjoy the muddy areas through which they are currently wading, though he can’t blame the animal for it, really. He’d prefer rock over mud as well, were he a horse… or in general all the same. He’s spent a good time in the mud while imprisoned by the Starks and can’t really recommend it.

Needless to mention that this is _cold_ mud and _cold_ weather. The Starks shall be cursed for their stupid House word now starting to yet again gain meaning. _Winter is Coming_. Winter _has_ come, that’s for sure. Which means that they are travelling in way too light clothing in an area where the fog is so thick with cold moist that one is easily under the illusion to be sweating when in fact it’s just the beads of condensed water dripping down one’s hair and skin to take one’s last body heat away with the mist all around them.

They are now close to Quiet Isle, or so Brienne told him once they reached this wasteland of mud. Though Jaime doesn’t mind the change of scenery. After days of trees and bushes, even _mud_ serves as a strange sort of counter-balance – and isn’t that telling in just how bothersome this whole journey is? If even _mud_ is a welcome change?

“More to the left.”

Jaime pulls on the reins to move the horse in said direction. Once they reached the muddy path leading to Quiet Isle, they agreed to it that Brienne will sit in the front part of the saddle while he takes the reins in the back so she can see better. Well, however well you can see with the mist lingering around them like a heavy cloak. It’s like breathing in water – and isn’t that about just as ironic as is the welcoming change of scenery? At every step they seem to be closer to drowning.

Brienne told him that you had to follow certain paths to get to Quiet Isle, or else you run the trouble of either sinking into the mud or getting lost somewhere along the way – and never coming back. And if the Seven seem to have gifted her with one thing, then it’s one fine sense of direction and memory. Brienne knows exactly where to turn, where to make the horse go slower, where to shift slightly to this side, where to step on safe ground, and that even though she’s only been there once.

Someone who doesn’t know her a gifted warrior would probably make the mistake to believe that she has some magic living within her gaze that grants her such good sight. And while Jaime finds something very unique in her big blue eyes, they don't hold _that_ kind of magic, he’s sure of it.

Though that is a small reassurance compared to her weakened state. While the infection didn’t get much worse thanks to the herbs, it didn’t pass either. Both tried their best with changing the bandages whenever time allowed, but even that seemed to offer little remedy to the illness her body seems to be fighting off with everything it has left – which seems to be little to begin with. Now she is drenched in cold sweat most of the time – and no, it’s not just the dew from the fog, that is her body bleeding out without any tint of red. As though all of the river’s water that was in her was trying to force itself out of her even now. And her voice comes out only under much strain, so faint at times that Jaime has to lean in very close to capture her words, dribbling from her big-lipped mouth like the droplet of water gathering there every now and then.

But the wench holds on – the Seven may be blessed for giving her all of the world’s stubbornness, except for the stubbornness Jaime calls his own – for now anyways. Jaime is pretty certain that the time will soon come where he is nothing but annoyed at her mulishness instead of feeling a strange kind of awe for it, or letting a faint swell of hope rise within him.

_I hope, at least._

It somehow reminds him of the time when the Brave Companions had them tied together and had their dear fun putting them in all kinds of positions while riding the horse. Though this is by far not as unpleasant as it was with the Bloody Mummers, obviously. But he reckons he’d rather sit through another round of that humiliation if it’d grant Brienne a bit more health in exchange, but the devils are dead and the only way she will get better is to see a healer, Jaime reminds himself.

At some point it seems almost epic irony that their roles are now somewhat reversed. Back when the Brave Companions had them, he was the one drifting in and out of the realm of reality as fever consumed him after the loss of his hand – and Brienne had to tend to him as pain deprived him of his senses, and now it seems to be just the other way around. Only that she didn’t lose a hand but a part of her face… and a part of her soul, or so Jaime fears. At least the part where her confidence lay, where her undying will lay, the kind of stuff that made her drop a stone on Robin Ryger or fight a bear with no more than a tourney sword.

“Can’t be too far from here, can it be?” he asks, though Jaime mostly talks to himself, he knows. Both agreed that Brienne only replies once it’s required, to put as little strain on her as is possible, which doesn’t stop him from talking, however. “Because I’d rather not take a break in the mud.”

“There’s no need for a break,” Brienne rasps. “We have to keep going until we… get there.”

“If your fever spikes again, I rather take a break now. I won’t have you drop dead before we get to the front door,” Jaime retorts.

 _I won’t have you drop dead at all, ever again_ , he means to say as well, but then thinks better of it.

_Keep the mood light, so the thick air becomes a little easier to suck into the lungs._

Brienne wants to reply something, but finds herself unable to as her voice leaves her yet again. Just like everything seems to leave her, her strength, her will to fight back, to fight at all. While Brienne knows it’s the fog that’s obscuring her vision, she feels her mind clouding with every step they make forward.

It’s as though she is blurring away.

It’s almost like it was after Biter injured her and she was consumed by fever as they brought her to the cave. At some point Brienne can no longer distinguish between the images she reckons are part of her dreams and the ones that are just obscure figures dancing through the fog as they naturally do. The only thing she dares to believe to be real is Jaime’s voice, which seems to go on in an endless song inside her head, almost as soothing as a lullaby, if not for a jest every now and then.

“Is it over there?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at a shadowy figure in the distance that may or may not be a settlement.

_Hard to guess. Might just as well be a massive pile of… mud._

“Yes,” she replies in a raspy voice.

She can feel her heart beating faster inside her chest. One thought she pushed away, out into the mist all the while, was the one if Podrick and Ser Hyle ever made it here – or if Lady Stoneheart proved to be terrible enough to recapture them even though they had a deal. At this point, Brienne trusts nothing but her wickedness.

 _And that even though this used to by my lady Catelyn_ , she thinks to herself solemnly. _My lady Catelyn never would have been that wicked_. She was kind and generous… and now all that remained of her is a shell. Not her voice. Not her warm eyes. Not her mind. Her spirit. Her heart. It all seems to have drowned in the river, bled out with the blood she lost from having her throat opened.

So the closer they come to Quiet Isle, the faster her heart beats to the point that it feels achingly hot in her chest.

What if there is just the Elder Brother – to tell them that neither one ever made it?

What if Quiet Isle got destroyed in the meantime?

What if the rules changed? Like the rules Brienne thought stable got twisted and turned around, those about honor and vows?

What if…?

_What if…_

“Good, it’s about damn time that we finally get there,” he exhales.

And it can’t be soon enough that he can see Brienne to a healer.

Brienne turns her head slightly in his direction once, noting to herself that for some reason, whenever he speaks, the what ifs seem to disappear in the fog, as though his words bound the taunting questions down and left them in the mud behind them.

“More to the right now,” she says as she tears her gaze back around.

 _Ahead_ , she reminds herself. _That’s the right direction, the only direction left open. Don’t look back or else they come back, too._

“No wonder no one bothers to come here,” he huffs. “If you have to pay attention to every muddy puddle there is.”

“That probably saved them… from having this place destroyed,” Brienne tells him, wincing at the pull on her sides. It’s like breathing water at all times now. While Brienne finds herself longing for the water even now, she doesn’t long for drowning.

_Water offers peace, drowning does not._

And sometimes Brienne can’t help but wonder if she isn’t still underwater – and all of that is just a very realistic dream after all. But then she reminds herself of the sensations, of Jaime’s warm body pressing against her back, and she can’t help but think that this has to be real, no matter how unlikely it may be.

There is his voice.

There is his warmth.

This cannot be a dream, can it?

_This has to be real. Has to. Has to. His voice points ahead – and ahead is the one direction to go. No matter the fog around us, Quiet Isle might be the only safe place – for him, too. For him especially. But what if…_

“I’ll be the last one to complain for as long as it’s safe there,” Jaime exhales.

He doesn’t care about the geography of it, or the people in it, the color of the houses or the quality of the wood with which the houses are built. He just needs some safety for Brienne. A roof over her head and a healer to tend to her. The rest? Doesn't matter. He can concern himself with that later all the same.

“One can never know,” Brienne replies.

Those what ifs again, creeping up her boots like the small droplets of water clinging to her body, holding on, not letting go, no matter how much she pleads inside her head, no matter how often she shakes from the cold.

“What now? I thought this was the place of hope?” he grimaces.

Brienne’s sacrificed her own life to send the other two to there, or so she told him. She has to have faith in this place, in those people, or else she wouldn’t have sent them there, right?

It is the only direction they had these past few days, their one stretch of hope.

Of stopping to wander, but arriving somewhere.

Someplace safe.

And now she thinks it’s all for nothing?

_Just what did Lady Stoneheart do to you to douse that flame within you, Brienne?_

“And hopes are… easy to crush…,” Brienne whispers.

_Or drown._

Jaime sucks his lower lip into his mouth. He’d like to say something along the lines of “but no, hopes are good things! Hold on to them no matter what!” but in the face of what just happened to her, to them, hope really does seem to be as obscure and far away while still so close as is the fog around them.

Hope seeps through you to offer a nice, cooling sensation, but crushed hopes lick at your wounds like cold mist, try to sink into your skin, into the stream of your blood, right to your bowels and your heart. A feeling of what should have been, could have been, what should be there but is not. Hopes hollow out spaces within you to reside, to make room for the possibility of achieving them, but if the hopes are crushed, remain unfulfilled, then the fog sinks into your flesh, takes up those alcoves and spreads cold deep within you, leaving you shivering and freezing.

Eventually they reach solid ground and Honor seems to be almost joyous as the hooves no longer sink in that deeply. The horse really is a blessing – some other mares may not have held on as this animal did. Jaime claps Honor on the side a few times as the horse starts to approach the houses now finally within reach.

No longer a travel without clear goal. Now there are houses, not just figments hiding behind the fog.

“Alright, now where’s the infirmary or… wherever it is that we have to go to find a healer?” Jaime asks, glancing around. The buildings look all too similar to him. While Jaime has no trouble adapting to a new area if he must, he still slightly loathes the circumstance that he is foreign to this place.

_I still don’t know where to go, what to do… I am still somewhat without direction. And I need direction. We both do._

Brienne looks around. This looks all familiar.

 _Obviously it does, I have been here before_ , she mentally scolds herself. But it looks different all the same, as though the aura of that place somehow shifted, or got blurred away in the cold fog drifting around the houses as though the mist was tenderly stroking the wood. Maybe it’s the light, maybe the lack of it, maybe it’s the cold, the fever, or the mist all around them, but the obscurity within the familiar prevails no matter how hard she squints her eyes. The last time she left, Brienne felt a little easier to breathe, after all the bad blood spilled out of her during the conversation with the Elder Brother, but now it feels like suffocating ever the more.

Yet again a hope that got crushed, got consumed by the cold mist, or so it seems.

“Uhm,” Brienne means to say, but then breaks out in a coughing fit.

 _Fire_ , she thinks to herself as she feels tiny tears welling up in her eyes. _This pain burns like cold fire._

“Easy now. We can’t have you suffocate mere feet from our destination,” he says, patting her on the back slightly with his left hand. Brienne can’t help the small shiver as this reminds her yet again that this is real, that it must be real.

_His voice. His warm touch. It must be._

_We have arrived, to whatever result it may be, but we are here now._

“M, m’lady? M’lady ser?”

Jaime and Brienne whip their heads around simultaneously to a young boy with black hair, looking at them with huge eyes.

“Podrick?” Jaime frowns. He saw the lad playing Tyrion’s squire back in the day. While he can’t say he paid much attention to the boy, he _does_ recognize the lad most certainly. For that, he’s been with Tyrion far too often and for far too long already.

“Ser Jaime?” Podrick gapes at him as though he was a ghost.

The boy seems to be quite overtaken, his eyes going back and forth between Jaime and Brienne as his mind seems to try to catch up to the news. Jaime swiftly dismounts the horse, making sure that Brienne stays secured in the saddle. Though by the way she stares at Podrick, her mind is too far away for him to reach at this point anyways.  

“Pod, the lady needs immediate treatment. Can you show me where to bring her?” he asks.

Jaime is still no good with children – the Seven know that he doesn’t just have shit for honor but also shit for fatherly qualities, judging by his own offspring, but the boy doesn’t seem too frightened, which is more than he can ask for at present.

“I, I, yes! This way!” he replies nervously, but then focuses on Brienne again. M’lady ser? Are you alright? What happened to you?”

Brienne opens her mouth in an attempt to reply something, but she cannot. Her mouth flexes like that of a fish out of water.

_This is real, too, right? It has to be. Has to. Has to. Has to._

_Podrick, seemingly well – however well you can be after hanging from a willow, can’t be just a product of my imagination, not some vivid image born out of the fog all around us, right? I cannot dream this. Right?!_

_This can’t just be a figure born out of fog that will drift away the moment I extend my hand, right?!_

“All in due time, Podrick,” Jaime tells the boy, who nods before starting to walk ahead.

“Yes, Ser Jaime,” Pod nods eagerly.

“And by the way, for matters of safety, it’d be good if you didn’t refer to me by name. Can you do that? We don’t want to upset the people, alright?” Jaime says, offering a small smile. Pod tilts his head, then nods.

Jaime reckons it’s really for the best to keep it low while they are here. One can never know to whom those brothers may whisper, or to where they send their birds. Jaime doesn't trust anyone around here. Well, Pod will hardly mean anyone harm here, but the rest? Jaime trusts no one, safe for Brienne.  

“Boy, where have you gone off to again?! We are supposed to…,” a dark male voice rings out – and soon a bulky fellow appears. Jaime grimaces as the fog releases the man as though a curtain was drawn… only to reveal a man with what Jaime thinks is a rather forgettable face.

That should be this ominous Ser Hyle from what he’s heard from Brienne thus far – though he really had to coax the words out of her. Which only encouraged Jaime ever the more, obviously.

_No more hiding, right?_

“And who are you… and what are you doing with the lady?” Hyle demands once he catches sight of Brienne on the horse. And the young woman is still too far in shock to even say something. She is too busy letting reality wash over her.

Jaime decides that he doesn’t like this fellow right at this moment.

“I am about to bring her to a healer if you were so kind not to further interrupt me,” Jaime quips, licking his lips in a futile attempt to make the corners of his mouth form a smile.

Because right now, he doesn't feel like smiling. Instead, his eyes seem to narrow out of reflex, and Jaime finds his phantom hand slightly flexing.

“Good to see you alive, m’lady, we already feared for the worst,” Hyle goes on. Brienne straightens up slightly, her eyes still wide in shock.

_They are alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive…_

_They are safe. Safe. Safe. Safe. Safe. Safe. Safe. Safe…_

Jaime bites the inside of his cheek to the point that he can taste copper on his tongue.

_He feared for the worst? Well, what hindered you from going back to rescue her, then? To **prevent** the worst – or at least **try** to? Isn’t that what we anointed knights are supposed to do? And if I, a man with shit for honor, know that in contrast to you, then I do wonder how it comes you ever bent the knee to take your oaths. _

_No, instead we let young women sacrifice themselves for our own lives,_ _isn’t it?_

“It's a true relief to know your concern for her, but as you might be able to imagine, it’s quite _urgent_ that we get moving here,” Jaime says, the coppery taste now having a lingering touch of bitterness and acid to it.

“You still owe me your name,” Hyle demands.

“Without meaning offense, I owe you no such thing. Especially since there is much more urgent business than formalities,” Jaime argues. “She needs a healer, so if you were so kind to move out of our way?”

Jaime tries his best to control his temper, though he can feel his phantom hand itching the same way it did short before he smacked that little griffin back at Harrenhal.

“It’s right over there, Ser Jaime,” Pod jumps in, but then slaps his hands over his mouth for letting his name slip.

“Thank you,” Jaime says. At least the boy seems to be conscious of the urgency of his request. Leave it to a grown man to ignore Brienne’s state even now.

“ _Ser Jaime_? The Kingslayer? Thanks to you we landed ourselves in this kind of trouble!” Hyle starts to curse. “That’s all because of you!”

 _Of course that didn’t slip past this man_ , Jaime sighs, trying hard not to roll his eyes. _He seemed dull enough, but that’s the one thing the oaf apparently seems to listen to._

“What part of ‘she needs to see healer’ did you not understand – _Ser_?” Jaime retorts, narrowing his eyes at him.

Not that Jaime is unaware of the circumstance that, yes, it’s thanks to him that they ended up in this mess, and for _that_ , he does owe the man, but _now_ is not the time.

_And isn’t that obvious?_

_A Lannister always pays his debts, so don’t stretch your luck, fellow. You will be rewarded and repaid in due time, but until then, you’d do better keeping your stupid mouth shut._

Hyle opens his mouth to say something in reply, but that is when the stirrup irons make chinking noises. Jaime whips his head around to see that Brienne’s lost consciousness and is about to fall over the side.

“Not that again,” he yelps as he manages to catch her upper body before she falls off. “We already had this, Brienne.”

“M’lady Ser!”

“Hey, you, how about you make yourself useful for once and help?!” Jaime curses at Hyle. “You see, with one hand this is kind of difficult.”

Hyle mutters something to himself before he helps Jaime straighten Brienne back up on the horse.

“And I told you that I should tie you back up again, but _of course_ you never listen, even when I am plainly right,” Jaime keeps silently cursing at her as he sees to it that she doesn’t fall over again. He can’t really blame her, though. After the toll her body took anyway, it must have been about as much of a shock to see Pod again… well, and that Hyle person, too…

“So now, the infirmary or whatever it is that they have here?” Jaime demands, turning his attention back to Podrick.

“This way, Ser.”

At last, they proceed to where Jaime wanted to go this whole time, Seven Hells. A man walks up to them, seemingly a Brother of the Faith, judging by the ragged frock he wears.

“What can I do for you?” the man asks, his voice calm and warm against the odds of the wet cold around them.

“She’s injured and sick. She needs help,” Jaime replies simply. “Immediately.”

“Oh, that’s _her_ ,” the man tilt his head once he catches sight of Brienne in the saddle.

“Will you help her?” Jaime asks, caring less if the man recognizes her now or not.

Just why seems everybody so fascinated with who they are? This is an injured, sick woman – what other reason do you need to see to it that she gets medical attention, by the Seven?

“She will be treated, yes,” the man assures him, and Jaime finds himself letting a silent sigh of relief. Maybe not all are as lost in their minds as this Hyle fellow.

“Then I owe you my thanks,” Jaime nods curtly.

“You are free to stay here or go the men’s quarters. I bet Ser Hyle will be so kind to see you to there, to change and get washed up – or treated if you also sustained injury.”

“Yeah, no, I will pass. I want to make sure she’s alright,” Jaime replies, his gaze going back over to Brienne, who is still hunched over in the saddle, her face nuzzled in Honor’s mane, small droplets falling down her straw-like hair like small shards of glass.

_I won’t trust any of you with her. That much is for sure._

“I am sorry, but women and men are strictly kept apart here. I see that you care about her, but there is no need to worry. She is in good hands here, I assure you.”

Jaime sucks his lower lip into his mouth. Apparently, Brienne missed to tell him about that.

_You come back around, Brienne, and then we’ll have a chat about how it's better to share such information beforehand._

But all of that can wait until she’s been treated.

“Well, without meaning offense, that assurance is not enough to me,” Jaime replies as calmly as he can, though he finds his fingers boiling hot with anger beneath his skin.

Just why can’t things go their usual ways for once? Why does everything have to be so complicated?

The situation is so plain that even the plainest mind should see through it. She needs help. They can help her. Just why don’t they just help her?

“Seven Hells, they treated us as well. We’ve been here before,” Hyle rolls his eyes. “She’ll be fine, better without you for all I know…”

“And she’s been in _that_ bloody woman’s service before, after she promised her shelter and vowed to never bring her to dishonor. And you tell me again why we are here right now?” Jaime retorts, narrowing his eyes at Hyle.

Just because something worked once doesn’t mean it will continue to work the same way. Things change, people change, circumstances change. Foes turn to friends. Friends to foes. The world is full of backstabbers – and not just the likes of him, stabbing Mad Kings when they least expect it.

_No one can be trusted. I won’t entrust her into strangers’ care ever again. The last time I though her safe with a letter and a sword, she drowned in a river._

Hyle opens his mouth for a reply, but seems to find none.

 _Better so_ , Jaime thinks to himself, licking some of the condensed water from the fog off his lips before he turns back to the Elder Brother, “Is there a way to make an exception somehow? I really mean no offense, but I just want to make sure for myself that she is… safe. Past experiences left me somewhat… weary, shall I say?”

“No exceptions are possible, m’lord,” the Elder Brother replies, offering an almost apologetic grimace. “Unless you are wed, there is no way that you can stay together here. We have those rules for good reason, m’lord, believe me that much.”

Jaime tilts his head at him, “Well, that’s good to know, then.”

“What now?”

“Why? That means I may come along after all. For I am her husband and she my wife. Apologies for not mentioning this earlier. She forgot to tell me of those very specific rules you have here, or else I would have said so straight away, though I’d blame the fever for it. So now, how about we speed things up? My _wife_ needs treatment, _now_ ,” Jaime says, his face a complete blank.

Hyle and Pod stare at him. The Elder Brother tilts his head.

“What? Did I speak unclearly?”

“You two are wed?” The Elder Brother asks again.

“Yes! Newlywed but wed. So now – where to?” Jaime urges the Elder Brother, who then gestures at him, “Follow me, then.”

Jaime takes the reins and then follows the Elder Brother as he escorts him to where he needed to be all this time, leaving Pod and Hyle still staring at the spot where they just stood at seconds ago.

The mist swallows their outlines until they are just stripes in the distance.

As it appears, fog obscures some destinations, but sometimes, it also points the way ahead.


	9. Bitter Salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne wakes up to some startling news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> I will begin with a big, big, very big apology. I know, this update has taken forever. 
> 
> I will say yet again that I am not kidding about that writer's block that's been haunting me in an awfully long time by now (just like the so-called real life... didn't leave me much room for fanfic etc. - a BA-thesis demanded to be written after all). You'd have no idea how much time I spent staring at unfinished chapters in Word, not managing a single word, a single phrase, to add to my fanfics. 
> 
> I do hope that I will be able to update something else soon enough, though I will most definitely NOT make any promises regarding the matter, fearing that additional pressure will prove to be counterproductive to the cause. I suppose I will just take a slightly different route from what I had first planned - because I believe (or hope at this point) that this was part of the reason why I was so very stuck with this story. But we'll only ever know once/if new chapters are to occur within a manageable time from now on. 
> 
> In any case... I hope you'll enjoy this chapter anyway. 
> 
> Much love! 
> 
> ♥♥♥

Brienne opens her eyes slowly, blinking repeatedly to remove the veil hanging over her pupils obscuring her vision. It's dark. Which is fitting, she supposes.

Everything has been dark these past few days, hanging behind thick mists, lingering behind closed eyes, echoes resonating from places unknown, unheard, unreal – or perhaps real enough for a shudder to run through her whenever she dares to call her dreams to mind.

 _How long did I sleep_?

She licks her dry, chapped lips, tasting the faintest hint of salt. A familiar sensation, long since embedded into the very fabric of her mind. A reminiscence of sitting by the shores of Tarth, chin resting on her knees, inhaling the salty sea air, allowing it to flood her senses like an invisible wave. A reminiscence of foolishly dreaming away, away from the isle, her home, the safety it promised, soon enough filling her mind with sweet illusions of wanting adventure, of wanting to be a knight, Renly’s knight.

And inside her mind, Brienne actually believed that if she couldn’t be the princess based on her looks, she might just as well chase her fairytale by pursuing a knight’s life – for all the good it’s done her, or anyone else for the matter.

So now, even the salt seems to taste somewhat bitter, no longer a promise of safety within reach, but a feeling of longing of a vow neglected, a promise not kept, pushed away in favor of castles built in the air, when there was one right in her back, protective, reassuring.

Brienne sucks in a deep breath through her nose, taking in the familiar scents.

_Quiet Isle._

Well, at least they made it here without further incident… _other than her passing out on the horse, that is._ If Brienne had the energy for it, she’d likely kick herself for showing such weakness. She doesn’t want to be any more of a burden to Jaime than she already was and is. And still, she keeps being just that.

_A burden._

_A liability._

_His weak spot._

Brienne lets out another long sigh, staring at the wooden ceiling, which keeps making small squealing noises as the planks of the small building move in the strong wind howling outside.

Yet, she is quite relieved to note that it is a lot easier to catch her breath now. While it still hurts more than a bit and sounds like a rattlesnake about to strike whenever she inhales too deeply, it is nothing compared to the hot-burning pain she felt in her chest the last that she remembers, _whenever that is_. Because time became an abstract thing as of late. Some moments stretched into small eternities, while others shrunk to the blink of an eye, the fraction of it indeed.

Brienne tilts her head to the side slightly, only to almost let out a shout as she sees Jaime dozing in a chair next to the bed, his long legs propped up on another chair he pulled to his feet, arms crossed over his chest, a woolen blanket loosely hanging around his hip, the thick blond hair falling into his face.

Brienne stares at him for a long moment.

_Why is he here?_

_With me?_

_Why isn’t he…?_

Before she can finish the thought, however, her body decides that it is time for another coughing fit, leaving Brienne wincing against the strain on her sides.

_So much to that._

She shifts up slightly in bed to suck in some much-needed air, and that is apparently what it takes to rouse Jaime from his slumber, his eyes darting through the darkness engulfing them.

“You have an odd sense of timing,” he groans with a small smile on his lips as he straightens his legs and arms, twisting his limbs. Brienne swallows the last cough in her throat to look at him, reckoning that she must look even more ridiculous than she does by nature.

“I am…”

“If you say that you are sorry, I will start yelling at you. That is as far as my warning goes,” he tells her, though his voice is surprisingly easy, still laden with sleep. Yet, there is something oddly bright to his hushed voice, a small light in the darkness, invisible to the eye.

_Is it hope, perhaps? Relief?_

Brienne watches him as he stands up, shaking out his limbs another time, before he walks over to the small table to pour a cup of water from the metal flagon set there, to then hand over to her wordlessly. Brienne takes the cup from him, her movements rather uncertain, but then takes a few sips of the cooling water which helps a great deal to douse some of the flame still burning its way down her throat to the pit of her stomach.

“How long was I out… _again_?” Brienne asks slowly, not lifting her gaze from the cup, trying to focus on the perfect circles swimming inside.

In the darkness of the night, she cannot even see her own reflection in the water. Though she reckons it’s for the better. The last time she dared to look into the water to take a glance at her own image, it was like seeing a stranger creeping out of her skin to climb into the mirror to mock her on the other side of the reflection, laughing, taunting, seeing, all of it, leaving no space to run, no place to hide.

_Septa Roelle and her looking glass shall be damned for always turning out right regarding these matters._

“Not for too long. You awoke shortly after that Elder Brother took care of you. They kept saying that he is a gifted healer, though I still don’t know if he is an _actual_ healer. He seemed to know what he is doing, though, despite his stature fitting more with that of a smith or knight,” Jaime tells her, rolling his shoulders. “He gave you something to put you to sleep.”

“Why would he do that?” Brienne asks with a frown.

Shouldn’t they know by now that she can well endure all that? Or at least _assume_ it? You don't hand out comfort to mannish women you can mistake for a man.

Because men are supposed to just take it, right?

Swallow it up, show no fear?

And doesn’t she have to do the same after he put on mail instead of silks?

“He had to clean out the infected wounds thoroughly. And speaking from experience, it’s no pleasure to have that done while you’re wide awake, so it was most definitely for the best,” Jaime replies, trying to offer a smirk, waving his stump at her.

Yet, he cannot _really_ bring himself to smile at that moment, no matter how much he tries to force that smirk, to sell that lie. Thus, Jaime is glad that the dark does well to conceal that fact.

He was relieved for it that Brienne was out of it through the procedure, but it all reminded him by far too much of Qyburn’s treatment to his stump, the pain, the smell of burned, rotten flesh. And a part of him was more than tempted to take the brother’s advice and stay out the door.

“That is nothing you have to see,” he had told him when Jaime motioned into the room along with the older man.

Much to his own surprise, however, Jaime didn’t hesitate for only just a second to tell the Brother that he would stay with her, if that was alright.

Jaime knew that he had to, for a strange reason he cannot really pin down, grasp, hold on to. He just knew that his spot was on this side of the door. Perhaps it’s a twisted, crooked kind of self-punishment to remind him of his mistakes and its consequences lying bare before him as the bandages were removed, leaving nothing but marred, hurt, missing flesh.

Or maybe it was really just his stubborn insistence on not wanting to leave Brienne’s side even when he knew her safe with the Elder Brother, who is far too young to be called one of the elderly, after watching him carefully as he assessed her injuries. While Jaime knows that he is still no match to his little brother in terms of reading people, he is not unfamiliar to that art, or so he learned.

There was no danger flooding from that fellow, at least not at that moment. Yet, Jaime couldn’t bring himself to leave her. His feet would not move, and his mind didn’t even let that though occur inside his mind.

_Leaving her… it seems so alien now._

No matter what may have motivated him in the end, Jaime stayed through it all, even though he was very close to throwing up his guts every now and then, not because of the disgust, really, for he has seen far worse after his own maiming. Instead, it was seemingly born out of the continuous realization that creeped its way into his mind ever since he fished Brienne out of the river, whenever he helped tend to her wounds: That the pain she suffers is because of him, that she will bear those scars because of him, because of his stupidity, because of his cowardice, because of…

 _Me_.

“Oh,” Brienne says before pursing her broad lips, snapping Jaime out of the vivid memories that evaded all of his senses at once.

“He’s said that the herbs you used helped a great deal. The fever is wearing down, too, or so he told me,” Jaime goes on, reckoning she might, perhaps, take this as a small sort of encouragement.

Jaime wanted to know more about her condition. Or rather, he found himself wanting to ask a million questions, though he lacked the words, and only a croaked “thank you,” travelled past his lips as the brother took his leave.

The Elder Brother wouldn’t say anything beyond that past a certain point. Jaime reckons he annoyed him too much with his insistence of staying around, seeing, observing. Not that he cared – or cares.

_If I bring myself to accept being no more than the Kingslayer for all times, I won’t start bothering about pissing off a brother who’ll likely forget me a week after we departed._

“That’s… good.”

Jaime offers a weary smirk.

 ** _Good_** _? A miracle is what you call it, woman_ , he thinks to himself, but doesn’t say aloud. Because somehow, he wants to keep that miracle guarded, protected, and stating that it is may tear down some of those walls.

“Have you… have you sent message to your people yet?” she asks, her big blue eyes finding him even in the darkness of the night.

Jaime blinks at her for a moment. He still tends to forget that there is anything outside that tiny spectrum they currently live in, that tiny circle he drew about themselves these past few days, when it was just the two of them.

That there is a world beyond their own.

“Not yet, no. I am not entirely convinced just where those birds would fly, and if one wouldn’t leave just another direction to inform the Brotherhood of our whereabouts,” Jaime tells her. “And even if not, who knows who may intercept those letters. As you said, there are spies among my people, too.”

_And other things. Liars and murderers, for instance._

He spent quite some time pondering all those close and distant what ifs and maybes, one more threatening than the other as they unfolded before his eyes. At some point, Jaime was so utterly frustrated and depressed by the options he saw available to them that he considered just staying here forever and let Winter take them.

However, of that one thing Jaime is certain, their next steps ought to be planned with utmost care and caution. One wrong move may cost them their life now. One bird landing on the wrong person’s arm may lead to something similar as what happened by the river.

And Jaime cannot have this repeat itself.

He cannot.

_It mustn’t ever happen again. Ever. Ever. Ever._

Therefore, Jaime decided that the best option available would mean a test of his patience: To wait and see, to plan, to do all the things he normally would have left to Tyrion, if the little devil were still around him.

Brienne studies him, blinking, seemingly taken aback.

 _But it’s safe here_ , Brienne wants to say, but then does not, reminding herself that it’s a foolish thing to believe.

There is no safety in this world, if young boys are hanged for nothing, if men are supposed to be killed for crimes they did not take part in. If that is the world they live in, then truly, this world is so full of injustice that it’s suffocating, and it's foolery to believe in a world full of justice and safety when the world seems to have abandoned all safety, itself, in the wake of war, power, the game of thrones.

“For now, it’s fine anyway. We won’t move on until you are fully healed,” Jaime argues.

 _We_.

The word, however small it may appear, however fast it rolls from the tongue, those two letters, that one syllable, burns in Brienne’s chest to the point that warmth spreads throughout her entire body.

_We. Not just you. Not just me. Us. We._

And more than anything she’d want to grab it and hold on to it, but she is too afraid that she will smash it between her clumsy, big hands.

“And before you get to it, you will not oppose me on this and convince me to ride off, leaving you here,” Jaime goes on to say. Brienne purses her lips, says nothing, to which Jaime huffs, slightly amused, “It’s almost odd if you don’t fight back. While I do enjoy the easy victory, it’s queer coming from a woman who is apparently born to be against me.”

“I am _not_ … it’s just…,” Brienne stammers, but then covers her face with her good hand as she leans back down on the pillow with a small grunt.

She never meant to be against him, not since she took off from King’s Landing, not since… _the bearpit, really_. Brienne never meant to oppose him. She never meant to betray him.

There are so many things she didn’t mean.

And there are so many things she does mean, but cannot say, cannot articulate, leaving nothing but bitter salt in her mouth.

“Hm, maybe now is not the time for such argument.” Jaime shrugs with a small smirk.

And Brienne tries her best to believe that he doesn’t just say so to reassure her, but because he really doesn’t want to be at odds with her, that he really wants there to be… a we, an us, a unity.

_No matter how foolishly selfish that may be._

Brienne watches him as Jaime walks around the chamber, gliding across the wooden floor with the kind of grace she would like to have, the kind of grace she expects from someone the likes of Jaime Lannister. Yet, she can’t help the frown as she can see his eyes wander around restlessly, checking, observing, not just her, but everything around them, as though a creature may jump from the shadows every now and then to come attack them.

While Brienne is weary of the shadows by now, after they took Renly from her, she cannot imagine that anyone would send a shadow after her of all people.

For that, she is too unimportant in world’s course.

She can feel the words on her tip of the tongue, almost tumbling out: “ _It’s safe here. You need not worry, Ser_ ,” but then she catches herself, because how would she know? How would she tell? If all safety is an illusion?

If all walls are broken, torn to the ground?

“In any case, we are considerably safe here and both Podrick and that… _Hyle_ was it? Seem fine, too. Alright, I think that Hyle is rather dumb, and he doesn’t like me, obviously. But I don’t really care. Nevertheless, all in all, one thing seems to work out at last, though I don’t daresay this too loud, given our success rate as of late,” Jaime goes on to say, moving along the walls at a slow pace, as though he could fool Brienne into believing that he just walks around the chamber to shake out his limbs.

“Right,” she mumbles.

“Pod proves to be a good lad and has an eye on what birds fly away to where. Up to this point, no raven’s gone in direction of that hideout,” Jaime tells her.

“Good,” Brienne replies, licking her lips, tasting more bitter salt.

“My, my, aren’t we talkative tonight,” he chuckles softly, though the smile yet again fails to reach his face, his eyes, and instead retreats back into the darkness of the room, the darkness passing between them.

“How… how is Podrick?”

“He is well. He’s been asking for you. I suppose you can go ahead and see him tomorrow,” Jaime answers.  

While he is by no means surprised by Brienne’s devotion to guard those she perceives as being under her protection, which, for some damned reason includes the Kingslayer of all people, it still catches him off-guard at times: That small, hushed voice, so full of care, lacking any scowling, grunting, huffing, struggling, dodging, retorting. This strange sort of voice that can contain warmth, hold it, pass it on. The sort of voice he can only faintly remember ringing in his ears when he was still a boy and listened to his mother reading stories to him.

“Is he? Oh, that’s a relief,” Brienne says, clutching at the hem of her tunic.

Though the wounds that were inflicted on him thanks to her won’t ever fade away, Brienne knows. And the mere thought is tearing her apart all over.

_He is only just a boy. Only just a boy._

“Did anything else happen?” she asks. To her surprise, he chuckles at that, and not in the manner he displays when he is just amused at what she says.

“One could say so,” Jaime replies after a longer moment, still walking around the room with the grace of a cat.

“What now?” she demands, finding her heart beat faster.

_What happened? What went wrong?_

“I actually hoped you’d sleep through until tomorrow. There’s quite some explaining needed, I suppose,” he tells Brienne, not looking at her, though.

“What do you mean?” Brienne asks again, feeling tension rise in her muscles, spreading out like tendrils to hold them in place.

“I will explain it to you, I assure you,” he says, but then stops himself. “Quiet now.”

“What? No,” Brienne whispers. Jaime whips his head around to her.

“Yes. Now don’t be stubborn,” he hisses. “Someone’s coming.”

“So what? We are not the only ones here,” Brienne snarls in a low voice, though the knock on the door catches her off-guard the same way.

“Hello?” someone calls out from the other side of the door.

“A moment please,” Jaime calls out, making sure to shuffle across the floor without making additional sounds.

“At that hour, I shall be damned,” Jaime mutters, motioning back over to her. Brienne’s gaze follows his every movement. He sits down at the end of the bed. “Now, it’s really important that you play along.”

“Play along?” Brienne gapes at him.

_What is all this about?_

“ _Yes_ , play along. Talk as little as possible. I got this,” he whispers.

“Jaime…”

“C’mon in,” he calls out, cutting her off before she can state any more objections. The door opens, and the Elder Brother comes inside with a lantern in hand, which forms a small orange orb that moves along with him as he motions closer.

“I hope I am not disturbing you. I wandered around a while and when I came by your cottage, I couldn’t help but notice the voices coming from your chamber,” he says upon entering. “Which means that you are finally back awake, Lady Brienne.”

She offers him an uncertain smile, still trying to make sense of that whole situation.

“I hope we didn’t disturb anyone,” Jaime says, offering a lazy sort of smile, rubbing over his eyes as though he just woke from slumber.

_Just what is this act about?_

“No, no. And I won’t stay for long. I just thought I might see about you little quick, Lady Brienne,” the Elder Brother assures him. “Just to be sure.”

“Oh, uhm… thank you,” both say in unison.

“May I?” the brother asks, gesturing at Brienne.

“Of course,” Jaime says. The Elder Brother pulls the chair Jaime previously sat in over to seat himself before her, checking her pulse and temperature with certain, yet gentle movements. Brienne just purses her lips, reckoning that she really should not speak up too much. Because she understands absolutely nothing at this point.

“It seems like your fever finally passed,” the Elder Brother says, removing his hand from her forehead, offering a reassuring smile.

“Oh?”

“We’ll have another look at your wounds in the morning, once we have better light than that of my little lantern here, though I remain hopeful that your health is getting increasingly better,” he tells her.

“That is a relief,” Jaime says, his eyes staying on the brother the whole time, and if Brienne is not mistaken, Jaime deposited a knife close by the bed, judging by the way he tilts his body.  

“I imagine,” the Elder Brother replies, offering Jaime a small smile, but then a frown forms on his face. “Hm, it seems like you didn't share bed with your wife.”

He gestures at the chairs and the blanket Jaime took for himself.

Brienne stares.

_Wife… Wife!? **What**?! _

She already wants to say something, but Jaime is quick enough to interrupt her, “I am a messy sort of sleeper when I arrive at new places, and I didn’t want to accidentally smack her on the still tender flesh of her wounds. I wouldn’t want my wife to feel additional pain, you see.”

“Of course,” the Elder Brother says with a blank expression, getting up. “Well, I am glad that you are back to consciousness, Lady Brienne. I think it’s time that I retire to my own chamber. Though we have some other matters discuss tomorrow.”

“Oh, do we?” Jaime asks, his expression blank, though the suspicion is strong in his voice, seemingly taking this as a threat for some reason past Brienne’s comprehension.

“Yes, but it can wait until tomorrow,” the Elder Brother says, his voice even, giving nothing away. Brienne finds herself ever the more irritated, because he, too, seems to act somewhat strange, or at least not the same way he did back when she first came to Quiet Isle. Something is different in his eyes, as though something else reflected in them.

There seems to be something passing between them that neither one wants to touch, address, _but what is it_?

“Alright,” Jaime says, his eyes not leaving the man for only just a second.

“I wish you a good night, then,” the brother says.

“And we you.”

The Elder Brother nods before walking back over to the door to exit. Jaime and Brienne say nothing at first, listening to the brother’s steps echoing through the night as he walks over muddy, stony ground, until his footsteps are swallowed by the darkness. Their bodies are as tense as a bow string pulled back too far, and only allow themselves a moment of catching their breaths once there is complete silence, safe for the howling wind raging outside.

Once they are certain that he is away, Brienne whirls her head around to him. “ _Wife_? What is that supposed to mean? What did you tell him?!”

“Why? Don’t you remember our great wedding ceremony, sweetling?” Jaime jokes, only to earn himself a smack in the side. “Ow! Alright, I suppose I deserved that one. But damn, woman, even now you have a nasty jab.”

He rubs his side for emphasis, but Brienne is too irritated and shocked to even care at this moment.

“Explain this to me. Right now!” she demands.

“The short version is this: You little minx forgot to tell me about that funny rule they have around this place, which is to keep men and women apart,” he says in a lecturing tone, though Brienne is having none of that. “Because there was no point in it!”

_They keep the women and men separate – so what?_

“Of course there was! I was caught totally off-guard when they said that we had to part. So I had to… _improvise_ ,” Jaime retorts, gesturing as though this was the most natural thing on earth, though it isn’t.

At least not to Brienne.

“Why? What did it matter?”

“ _What did it matter_? What…? I won’t leave you to some strangers. _That’s_ why it matters. How was I to know what they’d do with you while I am not around?” Jaime snaps, narrowing his emerald eyes at her, darting through the darkness, piercing right through it.

Does she still think he’d just abandon her in the good faith that those people he doesn’t know won't mean her any evil?

Jaime won’t take any chances with her – ever again.

And the fact that the Elder Brother keeps giving him those questioning glances assures Jaime every time anew that he made the absolutely right choice. Perhaps it finally pays off to be born into a clan of liars and murderers for once. The Elder Brother can poke at him and his story however he pleases, Jaime can always spin the lie further, spin the threads, the web, until they can no longer fall through the meshes.

“I was here before. They treated me well. They took in Ser Hyle and Podrick a second time already. Why would they do such a thing now?” Brienne argues.

Jaime tries hard not to groan.

“Why would they _not_? Why would the Brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart do to you and Pod and that Ser Hyle fellow what they did, even if they may have been fine people back in the day, or back in another life? Pieties and sympathies change even faster than the winds, Brienne. Just because they were friendly once doesn’t mean they will continue to. Everyone has a price, and some can be bought cheaper than one would believe possible,” Jaime tells her angrily.

Brienne wants to retort something, tell him that he is wrong, that this can’t be, but then she takes the bitter salt on her tongue again.

How is she to know that the Elder Brother and the others don’t have to do with the Brotherhood at some point? Or even if they didn’t take them in out of malice or to deceive them, they may turn against them if the Brotherhood finds a way of pressuring them? It doesn’t even have to be that they want to trick them, but with a dagger to the throat, with a dagger to the throats of those under your care, Brienne cannot rule out the possibility that the Elder Brother would not do what he’d believe would preserve most lives.

_But still! This is ridiculous!_

“Even if… that were so, that doesn’t mean you have to tell them that we are wed for some godforsaken reason,” Brienne snorts.

“The _godforsaken reason_ was to be sure that you and I stay together, so I can watch out for you,” Jaime snaps, trying his best to keep down his anger and frustration.

Because that is what he is: angry and frustrated. He knew Brienne would oppose him on this, for that she is by far too honorable and honest, but it still makes heat spread out within him that she seems so very… _repulsed_ by the idea.

_The false idea, alright. But still._

“But are you aware of the consequences of this?” Brienne argues vehemently, swallowing down the gasp that meant to escape her lips at his words of wanting to watch out for her, wanting to protect her.

“The consequence is that they leave us alone,” Jaime insists.

“And just why would the Elder Brother believe you anyway? He knows as a matter of fact that I was not wed by the time I took my leave from Quiet Isle!” Brienne argues, shaking her head in disbelief.

 _Needless to mention that it takes little imagination to know that I am still a maiden, unmarried, alone. For that, you only have to take a look at my face_ , she thinks to herself bitterly.

“That was easy enough. I said that we used to be something akin to childhood sweethearts back in the Stormlands and met in the Riverlands again, by coincidence, on your quest after you left this place. That we took our vows in private with only just a Septon, with Winter Coming with fast strides. That seemed to suffice as an explanation. And who is he to tell us otherwise?” Jaime tells her, gesturing.

At some point he grew almost fond of the story, the more he kept developing it thanks to the Elder Brother’s questions. It seemed to grow sturdier with every detail he added, this other life, this life which is no more than a fiction, and after some time, perhaps even better than fiction.

How he, _James_ , used to work for the Evenstar, and how he and Brienne developed a deep bond over time while still young. How he had to return back home and abandon the Sapphire Isle in favor of family obligations forcing him to the Riverlands. Only to run into her at some inn years, and a maiming, later. Only to revive a spark both thought was long since gone. Only to take a chance against the gloomy fate of the world in the wake of war and famine, of Winter Coming, and take their vows under a heart tree. How he lost her out of sight again after some raid in a small town. Only to fish her out of a river on the verge of death.

“But you are Jaime Lannister,” Brienne argues.

_How would the Elder Brother ever believe such a thing?_

“Which he does not know. We’ve never met before. To him, I am a guy who lost his hand, dressed in shabby clothes, and with you in tow,” Jaime argues. “To him, I am just James. Jaime Lannister is not the only one with blond hair and a hand missing.”

“But why would you do such a thing?” Brienne can’t help but ask again.

“What? Are you so offended at the idea?” Jaime snaps, for some reason seemingly offended now. Brienne wrinkles her nose.

Why would there be offense in her not wanting to spreading that lie? Shouldn’t he actually feel offense of having to _tell_ that lie in the first place? To pass this ugly creature off as his wife?

“What?! What are you talking about?” she asks, irritated.

“Nothing,” he grumbles, only adding more fuel to Brienne’s confusion.

She sucks in a deep breath. “The issue is that we now have to watch out a whole lot more than we likely would have, if only you had just told them the truth. I agree that we should not trust easily, but I don’t see why _such_ measurements needed to be taken. I would have been fine in the women’s cottages on my own.”

“You don’t know that,” he argues with vehemence.

“I was fine the last time.”

“Look, I honestly don’t care,” he retorts.

“You don’t…,” she means to say, but Jaime simply interrupts her, his eyes glowering with such intensity that the air catches in Brienne’s throat, “No, I don’t care. At all. I don’t trust anyone, safe for you. And Podrick, fine. The rest? I don't trust, I don’t care, I don't see. I don't trust them with your story or with mine, I don't trust them with my name, I don’t trust them with you and your safety. There is only you and I and Podrick for me right now. I won’t trust anyone with your safety other than myself at this point.”

He trusted a parchment and a sword to protect her – and see where it got her.

No, Jaime won’t ever take such chance again, not with her. Ever again. _Ever. Ever. Ever._

Brienne opens her mouth in reply, but no sound comes out.

_How can you trust me?_

_How can you care about me?_

_How can there be a we of that sort after all that happened, after all the damage done?_

“So excuse me if I had to come up with something on the spot to ensure that. That seemed the best option to me. And now we can no longer change it anyway, so whether you want to or not, you’ll have to play along,” Jaime grumbles.

_You will have to tell the same tale, our shared tale, whether you like it or not, Brienne._

“It's just… I…,” Brienne stammers, lacking the words.

_He trusts me. He trusts me still. He trusts me…_

“I know that you are not fond of telling lies, but for now, it can’t be helped anymore anyway. What’s done is done. You see that yourself, don’t you?”

“That’s not… it’s just… _this_ particular… lie,” Brienne brings out.

“That we are wed? I think I’ve told worse lies than that.”

Brienne wants to argue, but the words dissolve on her tongue, leaving yet again no more than bitter salt.

_Doesn’t he have a point?_

What does it matter what they believe in or not? It’s a lie. And he told it to protect her. She should swallow down her pride. She should swallow the uncertainty that comes when she thinks of her father, then, of what he would think were he to know of this folly.

Jaime just tries to protect her. That is all there is to it.

She told lies as well, to protect him, or at least in the attempt.

It’s only just a lie. And it will dissolve into nothingness soon enough. Once he returns to his life, his family, his people… his lover… once he returns back to the man he was before she dragged him into this whole mess.

Any idea of marriage linked to her will stay behind the mist engulfing Quiet Isle.

 _And in any case, that is likely the closest I will ever get to being wed. It’s not like anyone would ever want me now, with a chewed-off cheek to add to the list of everything that makes me not enough of a woman to pass for a bride_ , she thinks to herself, biting her lower lip.

“You might have a point, Ser,” she concludes, letting out a long sigh.

_It’s no use._

“I am… I apologize. You meant it well, I suppose. I was, I still am just… _shocked_.”

“Yeah, I should have told you before the Elder Brother spoiled the surprise of our holy union, I reckon. Though I didn’t suspect him to come up to our chamber at that hour. I thought we’d have a bit more time,” Jaime says, leaning his head back.

_That’s what it always is – a mess, mingled with misunderstandings, words unspoken, or said at the wrong time._

At some point, he almost wished he were a few hours back in time, not because he’d want Brienne back to that threatening sort of slumber on the verge of unconsciousness, far from it, it still fills his heart with waves of relief washing through him. However, a few hours back, the fiction of his story seemed much more palpable. To the point that the smallest fraction of his mind got lost in it, and considered it a strange sort of alternative, a strange sort of reality of what never was.

The fiction of what could have been, had there been more favorable circumstances.

The fiction of a life that Jaime could have had, if in a different shape, if only he had not made that one choice that brought him the white cloak wearing heavy on his shoulders, leaving him with only just one woman never his to wed, one bed not his own, a fleeting existence, a fleeting love that only existed in a transfigured form, a shape he couldn’t see until his focus pulled away and he saw what little, shriveled thing remained of it.

Had Jaime not been a fool like he was back in the day, mistaking the kind of love he and his twin shared for something entirely different, lifting it into the skies above to give it something holy when in fact it was wrong, by both of them, all along…

He may have a wife now. The Rock. Lordship. The legacy his Father always wanted to inherit, to continue. People under his protection, looking up to him not out of fear, but for guidance, to discuss about lands and who gets to hold this piece of land. People not looking down on him for his finest act, overflown and disfigured by the red of Aerys’ blood. Children he could call his own chasing down the hallways, their footsteps echoing into the main hall as he’d go about tiresome politics to bring a smile to spread across his face. An ordinary life. Not with much glory, but stability. With walls that would hold, protect, shield, instead of containing his dark secrets now, meager walls around his heart that tore down when they took his hand, and kept on dissolving the more he saw, the more he allowed himself to see.

He could have had all of that, if not for the one choice he made.

So yes, the little fiction of an innocent love, of a right choice in a world that is way too often wrong about itself, was comforting, worth getting lost in. If only for a time.

But Jaime knows he can no longer retreat into that fiction, if only for a time, because that is what it is: _A fiction_. And while Jaime liked the comfort that came with the tale, he is by no means out to get lost in it. He had that long enough, almost for too long altogether.

However… a part of him likes the fantasy no matter what.

“He seems suspicious,” Brienne notes. “He seemed somewhat different from the last time I remember him.”

“As he ought to be. But so long we stick to the story, he cannot prove us much of anything. And I think it better stays that way. Until we know what to do next.”

Brienne looks at him for a long moment.

There is again, that small word meaning so much more than it can hold at times: We.

And that small word is then mingled with this strange sort of prospect of a future – because to Jaime, there is a “we” that relates to something that is still to come, about what comes “next.”

“Yes. We have to think of a plan,” Brienne says, nodding her head. “Maybe a chance sparks up so you can contact one of your family. I mean… maybe we’d have luck reaching out to King’s Landing, right? If the spies are in Riverrun…”

“Well, I can’t imagine a much friendlier climate in King’s Landing either,” Jaime replies.

“You mean to say?”

“There is quite… a bit going on there right at this moment, so to speak, but we can just as well discuss this in the morning,” Jaime tells her quickly.

Truth be told, he would rather not address those matters at all. While Jaime knows he cannot forever ignore what is going on in the capital, with his clan, a part of him would really rather leave it with the ashes of the letter by Cersei that landed in the hearth, folding in on itself as the parchment was consumed by the flames, leaving nothing but fleeting fragments of a message filled with lies, and short-lived promises.

While Brienne knows that he and Cersei did, and some many other things no one but her know or will ever know, a part of him would rather not have to tell her.

A part of him is afraid of the judgment that may come with that admission.

A part of him is afraid that she may yet again tell him to go back.

Because a part of him wants to linger.

A part of him, echoing with every beat of his heart, wants nothing but stay, stay away from King’s Landing, and here.

_With her._

But if Jaime learned one thing by now, then it is that running from your responsibilities, shielding your eyes from the truth, doesn’t help you. It keeps you stuck, keeps you in one spot, doesn’t allow you to move, let alone to breathe. It suffocates you slowly, but nevertheless those ghostly hands hold on to your throat and press down over the years until you forget who you were and don’t even want to imagine who you may still become anymore.

Instead of allowing you a swift escape from world’s troubles, it gives rise to demons and ghosts coming to haunt you in your sleep, glossing over memories of your loved ones, making gay images of what was gloomy, wrong, something ordinarily wrong made out to be something special to give it a notion of being worth it, when in fact it never was, for either him or Cersei.

And Jaime is done with that. He has to be done. He cannot allow himself to keep dreaming, to keep sleeping while awake. He dreamed away often enough by now, for far too long. And Brienne almost paid the price for his foolery of chasing the man he once was.

If he wants to see some change being done, he has to do it himself, no matter how unpleasant, no matter how challenging the task may be.

And if that means he has to tell her some more about him and his many wrongs, if that means that this glistening of strange adoration sparking up in her eyes when she speaks about him as a knight… then that is so.

That doesn’t mean he likes it, though. It’s just… necessary.

_Gods be good, the woman, if unknowingly, still brings forth that foolish righteousness within me._

“I see,” Brienne replies slowly.

Though she doesn’t really. She cannot read his expression, not only because she is terribly bad at the task, but because she has the feeling that he wants to say something that he cannot bring himself to verbalize.

And what would prevent him from it? Anxiety? Fear? Most likely not. He is the Lion of Lannister, a brave member of the Kingsguard. What would he fear to tell her – after he already told her about Aerys?

“In any case… so we can agree on sticking to that story for now?” he asks.

“I don’t see that I have much of a choice now anyway,” Brienne replies, rolling her shoulders. Even if she were to object, what would it get them other than additional trouble they cannot deal with at present?

A while back, she likely would have minded, but right now… Brienne cannot really bring herself to it. It’d ring so hollow to stick to nothing but the truth, to nothing but honesty, after she lied and betrayed, over and over again.

“I honestly thought you’d give me more of a fight,” Jaime chuckles softly.

He thought she’d give him _much_ more hell for this than a jab to the side for the effrontery. Because Jaime is aware that Brienne is still a lady, nobly born, the only living daughter to Lord Selwyn Tarth of Evenfall Hall. Such messages about secret unions may have wider reaching consequences if the noble houses were to know about her having wed a nobody, a fictional one no less.

However, Jaime remains positive that the surges caused by that lie won’t build up to a giant wave to reach against any castle’s wall. He still hopes to see her off to safety as soon as she is back to health.

And then she can wed someone proper, and hopefully forget about all this mess here, even with the scar being a constant reminder for the rest of her days on this planet.

“… Maybe I’m just sick of fighting,” Brienne says uncertainly, averting her gaze.

She just feels like the fight left her all together, when truly, she knows she has to keep fighting, she always had to fight, for everything and nothing at all, but right now? She can’t bring herself to fight back much. She is like the driftwood swept to Quiet Isle from which the brothers form their cups and bowls. She just travels with the tide, wherever it may take her.

“You? Sick of fighting? Now, there is wonder,” Jaime laughs.

Though _he_ is sick of fighting most definitely, too, has been in a long time.

But then again… life seems to be nothing but fight these days, and you don't have the choice but to keep going. You don’t get to say that you don’t want to fight anymore when someone holds the blade against your throat and tells you to pick up the sword to your feet.

“Well, the fight’s over now anyway, is it not?” Brienne asks, still not looking at him.

She yielded. And for some reason, her life was spared regardless of that fact. But still… she yielded. She gave up. Nothing will ever change about that circumstance. She yielded, to the water of the river as her head was pushed beneath the surface and drew out her breath with every second passing.

“I suppose there are still quite some battles out to be decided,” he tells her, though Jaime can sense the sadness weighing heavy on her voice.

Because from what he understood, yes, she gave up. Brienne gave up on herself in favor of… _him_. For _some_ damned reason. She yielded to Lady Stoneheart’s madness and was willing to sacrifice herself for it in the process.

And that is likely one of the noblest things Jaime ever got to know. It is not just some fictional tale, something written in the story books read out to children, sitting by the heart, huddled together under a blanket, studying the illustrations, listening to the grand tales of knights and maidens, dragons and evil kings, of bravery, nobility, virtue, gallantry, romance.

This is real, what happened to her, what she did, it’s all real, as real as the scars she bears now thanks to this whole mess.

A knight’s tale that won’t ever make it to roll from the lips of young women as they sing the ballads of glory.

A story left untold because no one expects these virtues to be reunited in the body of an ungainly woman dressed in mail the likes of Brienne of Tarth.

That is one of the great problems with history, Jaime believes: Rarely is it written by those who can give proper account, but way too often by those who glance at the spine of a book, never having been there, judge it by its cover, the leather, the title, and if it doesn’t appeal, if the story does not fit with the rest, it lies neglected in the depths of a library, in a dark corner never visited.

Because history, by the end of the day, will forever be no more than just that: _A story_.

And as far as Jaime is concerned, it makes him wonder why his little fictions seem so inferior, small, unimportant, unheard, compared to the ones noted down in tomes of Westeros’ historical accounts. Because it stays the same even when he was and is speaking the truth.

However, that seems to be the thing: History is a story of forgetting, of allowing only one voice at a time, or only those that fit in with the rest. And that makes of what may, perhaps, have been the right thing back in the day, a sin, makes of a young lad a Kingslayer without ever questioning his motives, revisiting the cause. Just like it makes of the Maid of Tarth a Kingslayer to Renly Baratheon. Just like that made him one of the people who planned on the Red Wedding. That makes of her the enemy that Lady Stoneheart wanted to see dead for sins others wrote upon Brienne’s freckled skin.

“… One can never know,” Brienne says after a long moment.

To think that Jaime still seems to see a future for her beyond… _any of this_ … it makes her heart inevitably beat faster.

“We’ll find some battle for you, I will see to that,” Jaime replies, offering a small smile Brienne finds herself return before she can even think about it.

“Will you?”

“Why of course, as your wedded husband, that is obviously my task.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Oh, c’mon, we might just as well have a bit of fun with this,” he teases.

“This is no joking matter,” Brienne scolds him.

_Just because I won’t ever wed doesn't mean I don't see value in these unions, at least in some of them._

“In fact it actually is, considering. And I think we both can use that quite well,” Jaime argues, with a playful kind of seriousness that leaves Brienne frowning at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I for myself, could use a moment of lighthearted distraction from all… that we left by the river. Obviously, I don’t know how it is about you, but I can’t imagine that you enjoy pondering that the whole time. So why not seek out a short-lived distraction like that?” Jaime tells her, not looking at her in particular, instead allowing his gaze to wander around the dark chamber.

“… I suppose you might have a point there,” she says, barely moving her lips apart.

Jaime is pretty certain she only says so to keep him from pushing the matter any further.  

“You telling me that I am right? The night keeps getting better and better,” he says, chuckling softly.

“… I think we should just get back to sleep,” Brienne says slowly.

“Yeah, I suppose we really better should. There is no sense in spending the next day being tired. After all, the Elder Brother has some _very important_ matter to share with us – whatever that may be,” Jaime says with a grimace.

He didn’t like the sound of those words. Too many implications floated around them.

“Do you have any idea?” Brienne asks.

“Not really,” he replies. “I suppose he wants to poke at the story a bit more, now that you are awake. You know, to see if our stories match. Which means you will have to make sure to stick to what I said, and not being stubborn about it and trying to change it. Or else you give away the game.”

“I hope you didn’t make up anything too… awful.”

“Awful? What would that be?”

“Anything embarrassing?”

“I think I kept it pretty low. Safe for that grand wedding with silk and festoons and half the town being there to cheer us on for the bedding ceremony,” Jaime snickers. “Oh, and did I mention the white horses upon which we rode up to our chamber? Glorious.”

Brienne holds her good hand in front of her eyes, unable to help the small smile to flash across her thick lips.

Jaime chuckles to himself. This may possibly be the first night he sees her smiling in all earnest, even if she tries to hide it away. Normally, the woman does well to keep up her walls at all times, only scowls, pulls the corners of her mouth into a frown, or settles with a blank expression one cannot see past.

Maybe she simply believes that he cannot catch that in the dark, but Jaime can see that fine line painted in the lightest of blues thanks to the moonlight filtering through the window, a small upward curve that makes its appearance in this world far too shortly, and not often enough.

To see her smile and hear her chuckle is a welcome change for Jaime. Because it’s anything but the longing glances at the river that made his skin crawl.

And he is more than tempted to tell her that she should do that more often, but then he does not. Knowing her, she would only take that in the wrong way and quit it for all times when around him.

Some miracles are better left unspoken, protected behind the walls of the mouth.

And some smiles are better off being left in the dark, for only those to see and hear who keep their eyes open even in the dark.

“I suppose I have to prepare for the worst then.” Brienne grimaces.

“When don’t you have to do just that?” he huffs.

“True again.” She shrugs.

“But oh well, that glorious tale can wait until morning all the same. It’s not going to run away,” Jaime says, rubbing his fingers over his eyes, letting out a yawn.

“True.”

“Then we should retire for the day,” he sighs, sitting up. Jaime bends over to pick up the blanket that fell off the chair at some point. Brienne blinks at him.

“You don’t have to sleep on the chairs,” she says hastily. Jaime tilts his head at her. “And here I thought you’d appreciate that service.”

“I mean, I won’t keep you from it if you don’t want to sleep in bed. That’s not. It’s just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to,” Brienne tells him, careful not to look at him for only just a second.

“Is it that my _wife_ insists on sharing the marital bed with me?” Jaime asks with the most ridiculous of grins spreading across his face.

_A distraction, no more, but a pleasant one no less._

“Oh, shut your mouth. You know how I mean it,” Brienne grumbles, trying her best to keep her blush hidden in the shadows. “We slept next to each other outside the same way. That is all.”

“And you’re sure?” he asks, more serious this time.

“Yes,” Brienne answers with as much resolution as she can muster.

“Ah, that’s a relief. Imagine what explaining we’d have to do if they were to see how you constantly kick your dear husband out of bed. They might start asking questions about that, too, after all.”

Brienne shifts over as far as her body allows while Jaime twists around to lie down next to her. While she knows that it shouldn’t feel different because, _truly_ , they have slept like this a hundred times before, it still… _feels different_. Maybe because it’s a bed, or maybe it’s the fact that Jaime told them this _foolish_ lie about what they are to each other.

But it shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

_Why should it?_

“Would you quit that already?” she grumbles, shifting on the bed.

“You and I both know I won’t,” he chimes, offering a faux innocent smile.

“Which is why we will sleep. Right now.”

“Tough love, wife, tough love,” Jaime sighs.

“Stop it now.”

“Won't you call me husband?”

“Shush now,” she hisses.

“Hm, methinks my lady wife is a little grouchy.”

“They can’t hear what we speak anyways, so you can stop that act now.”

“But I don’t want to.”

While it's just a story being told, who is to say that they can’t have that one night of playing around with this, before severity settles back in, and questions of what comes next, of what plan to follow, how to get out of this, arise with the sun announcing another day?

The world will be at disarray once he opens his eyes in the morning anyway, as it has been in a far too long time.

“Sleep.”

“As my lady wife commands.”

Brienne grumbles to herself as she turns away, glancing at the wall, listening to Jaime’s breath evening out with every intake of air. She closes her eyes, swallowing.

And suddenly, the salt taste of salt, and less of bitterness.


	10. Impossible Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime uses the first hours of the morning for some contemplation.
> 
> Once Brienne is awake as well, the two discuss their next immediate steps, sharing in some of the stories of James' life, before heading outside for the first time in a long time to bring James to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for sticking around after... all this time.
> 
> To perhaps offer some explanation for my long, long, looooooong hiatus... things have not been going at all too well for me in the so-called real life, especially with regards to my story writing, some stories flowed while others got stuck behind a dam. And then crisis struck not long ago with a tragedy in the family, which has been a downer on most of my writing skills for a while. I do hope that I will finally find the time and mind to update most of my WIPs, though I do not dare to make any promises just yet. 
> 
> I hope that the new chapter is perhaps not necessarily worth the loooong wait, but will still make up for some of it. 
> 
> Sending you all of my love! ♥♥♥
> 
> Please enjoy!

Jaime pries his eyes open slowly, blinking against white, milky light filtering through the film hanging on his eyes like a veil.

Though Jaime must say, for that the mattress is thin and filled with straw, his night’s rest, _however short_ , was one of the deepest slumbers he has had in a long time.

Perhaps it’s really just the exhaustion of the journey that finally wore Jaime down, and managed to even stop _his_ body from its ongoing restlessness at last. Jaime will not question it so long it carries on, because Jaime needs his strengths for the battles he knows are still ahead of them, lingering behind the mist surrounding the isle, even if most of them will not require sword and shield.

 _Is it sadly or fortunately_? Jaime wonders for a moment. After all, his sword skills are still _anything_ but good, _anything but passable, to tell the truth_. He’d likely even lose against that _fool_ Ser Hyle if it ever came down to a sword fight. Though Jaime still dares to count on being cleverer than that man to stand a chance even against the brute force and little intellect that man seems to unite in himself.

_Which is not a high bar, really._

But then again, Jaime, too, has been a fool for years and years, _way too many years_ , so perhaps he doesn’t get to judge other people’s foolery after all. A fool for love. A fool for duty. A fool for believing that the world would change for the better at some point if only he held on tight enough to the images of the world he wanted to see happening in the future.

With a small sigh, Jaime lifts his head off the thin pillow to take a look around the small chamber, which is still rather dimly lit, the outlines of the scarce furniture all fuzzy by the edges. It’s still rather strange, almost surreal, while at the same time perhaps one of the realest spaces he has been at in a long time.

Jaime turns his gaze back to the bed, or rather, the other side of the bed, once he feels something brush against his arm.  

He blinks once, twice, and then another time, to gaze upon finer contours of the woman lying beside him, not as fuzzy by the edges as the furniture is, the realest thing he’s ever got to know, the realest thing in a world that seems to continue shifting out of any shape in the wake of Winter.  

In her sleep, Brienne even turned around to face in his direction, which is rare enough. Because normally, her body is seemingly too stubborn to even consider turning his way in the midst of the night, as though there was an invisible string pulling her away from him.

Brienne’s mimic look surprisingly relaxed, the little light softening some of her hard, edgy features. Her hair looks like a bird build its nest right within it, but thanks to the soft glow filtering through the windows, it seems less flaxen and more like fool’s gold.

_And how fitting is **that**?_

She shifts again ever so lightly, and Jaime can’t help but note that Brienne moves rather delicately in her sleep. For that she trots and waddles around like a big, bulky giant from beyond the Wall most of her time, the Maid of Tarth has something strangely graceful to herself once she is out of armor, once the candles in her mind are all doused, leaving her not to fret, not to worry about how or where she moves, and who might see her doing so.

There can be something liberating about darkness, as it appears, holding more than just terrors and haunting memories, but a strange sense of hope, too, a sense of realness in a world that is so very much about pretending, lying, deceiving, making fools of men and women alike.

Undeniably, Brienne is not petite in the ways his sister is or any other ladies roaming around the court rooms are, and is hardly pretty to the eye, even less so thanks to the wound still an angry shade of red on her cheek, but there is something very soft about her that can step into the light only once Brienne’s big blue eyes are closed, or so Jaime can’t help but think to himself as he looks upon her shallowly breathing form.

Jaime finds himself startled for a moment when she shifts another time, nuzzling her broad nose further into the straw-filled pillow, breathing shallowly, because it is only at that moment that he notices the lack of her touch. Moments before, Brienne’s fingers had been pressed against his stump, spreading comfortable warmth instead of gaping hollowness in a limb no longer there, but still aching for touch, for contact, wholeness, content.

Cersei wouldn’t even want to look at that thing. The golden hand seemed to conceal it well enough that there were scars beneath, deep within, running up his arm, all the way to Jaime’s heart, bringing cracks to the otherwise perfect counter image of hers. And the way Jaime sees it, some many women would react the same way, so perhaps he can’t even blame his twin for that particular reaction.

It is always the things we don’t know, the things that are unfamiliar to us, that we fear most, that we can’t help but stare at because they are uncanny. Because we cannot seem to fathom that we can be so entirely different while still belonging to the same group. Small changes, small differences, _no bother_ , everyone is unique in that way, that is part of the human condition. Yet, a missing hand, a dwarfish physique, broad shoulders fitting that of a man coupled with flat teats on a woman, those things are hard to place because they do not seem to fit into the pattern we assign to our group. So it seems easier to displace them with glances or averting one’s gaze quickly, so that they vanish, go away, even though they don’t.

They don’t ever go away. Because they are as much part of the human condition as are those who only have small differences setting them apart from the rest.

Cripples, freaks… Jaime now belongs to them. He is one of them. One of the displaced. His younger brother, _the little devil_ , grew up in the world of broken things, whereas Jaime still has to get used to the idea that this is his place to be now the same way, that this world of broken things is his exile, that he is incomplete now, too.

_But perhaps that is actually part of the human condition the same way – this incompleteness._

Cersei and he, _for longer than did either of us any good_ , believed in the fiction of completing each other, that together, they were whole. Until their unity cracked and came apart like two halves of an egg. And likely, that was the fiction all along, that there was a way for him or for anyone else for that matter to find completion within another person. That Cersei’s mere being there, that her mere existence was meant to fill a gap within himself.

We all lack something, as it appears. There is something missing in us, right from the beginning. And perhaps it is our quest to find that something, and completion is only the state of death. Maybe you die the moment on you find completion, the thing you are missing.

_Who knows?_

Tyrion missed the height, the perfect body that should have been his, having been born a Lannister – though Jaime wouldn't know what he is now – lion, stag, wolf, a dragon? Cersei missed being born a man, to be the heir she always wanted to be, lamenting to Jaime time and time again how she loathed being treated differently due to her sex, felt sold off like cattle once she was betrothed to Robert, missed the power she thought it’d offer her. Brienne misses the conventional sort of beauty that her byname should promise, but does not hold.

And Jaime? What has _he_ been born without? What is his to miss? 

Is it really just the hand that is missing now? The one he lost to a good deed no less? Because Jaime was born with two of them, he used that hand absent now, not just for good deeds, but very bad, too, _foremost_ one might even say. Holding his twin in an embrace he never should have shared with her, shoving a young boy out a window because they could not keep it together, took a risk, were careless in their all-consuming love.

But what _was_ missing from him from the very beginning?

Jaime had _everything_. He could have been Lord Lannister of Casterly Rock eventually, following his father’s legacy. He was entitled to huge chunks of the world, they lay open to him on a golden tray: He was athletic. He was a good knight, some called him formidable, even. Born into a family of riches. A loving mother, a strict father, who had little love to give, and made him do some many things that Jaime will find himself regretting till his last living breath. He was born without a single mark, the mirror image of the beautiful Cersei Lannister. He was born fearless. H was born strong and healthy. Brave and courageous when it counted. Honorable once, _maybe now no longer_ , but he was not born in dishonor, not born in shame.

So what is Jaime missing from the day he took his first breath, roared at the world for the first time?

Jaime had everything right within reach, and now he has nothing but ruins of what he tried to hold on to in its stead, believing it to be the worthier price: a soiled white cloak likely the maggots now feast upon, an almost empty page in the White Book, children who are his and not his at the same time, a sister who promised to love him in a way she didn't love him, lies, hopes shattered, dreams scattered, a stump of a hand, and no more than a fictional life living only so long they are on Quiet Isle, telling the tale Jaime spun ever since they reached this place.

Behind him lie only the things Jaime could have had, if he had kept on the right track, had not missed his step as often as he did throughout the years, the way he should have.

But maybe _that’s_ it, the missing piece: That he was born fearless, but hesitant to reach out for what was right within his grasp. Maybe Jaime’s missing piece is to have been born shying away from stability for far too long.

The Rock was within his reach.

Lordship was.

Wife, children.

A stable life without the troubles of the world weighing heavy on his shoulders.

All those things were right there. They could have been his, if only he had claimed them as his, but then they were no longer, because Jaime made a choice towards an unsteady future, full of uncertain outcomes, instead, believing that stability was a little price compared to the gain he would have from it.

Only to have so many things slipping through his ghost fingers now, with him being unable to hold on, no matter how desperately he may try to clutch on to those last shreds and tatters of hope, of the unsteady future he thought would become steady at some point.

 _And how foolish that seems now_ , Jaime thinks to himself bitterly, blowing out air through his nostrils. _Standing before the ruins of your life, the castle you could have called yours in the distance, mocking you. Talk about the life choices of a fool._  

But Jaime didn’t take the chance and instead succumbed himself to instability, accepted being swept around by an indecisive tide, the chaos of the raging sea.

So, maybe a fictional wedding is truly the best Jaime will ever get. If that is his missing piece, he will not succeed. Because missing pieces only come to you once you pass. Once the journey has ended.

_Right?_

_… Or maybe it’s something entirely else after all. Who knows?_

It’s probably all for nothing anyways, to ponder these matters.

_Most likely, we’ll all die in the long Winter about to come, and then all that thinking will be for nothing, this way or another._

Leave it to the bookworms, the scribes, the Maesters, the little dwarves, to think their heads sore, pondering the maybes of what makes up the human condition.

Jaime is pulled out of his thoughts when Brienne’s fingers brush against his stump once more, lingering close enough to emit that strangely soothing heat that he felt some many times by now.

And that is perhaps the strangest thing of them all. To have beside him now a woman not afraid of his blemishes, apparently never afraid of the look of his stump – _or the feel of it_ , _as of now_ – even if only through the heavy mist of deep slumber. Unafraid of reaching out, if only just in her dreams.

Which would leave Jaime wondering if it is truly him she reaches out to in her fantasies playing their tunes behind closed eyelids.

 _Maybe it's just Renly after all. It probably is_ , Jaime thinks to himself, a small frown forming on his lips. _But why do I bother thinking about that anyway?_

Because if he now starts to get jealous over dead men who were pillow biters, which did not stop the woman from loving Robert’s little brother with a fierceness Jaime only ever knew from his own foolery in his mad love for his twin, then Jaime’s missing piece is his _mind_.

However, he can’t help but enjoy the sensation of her warm fingers against his stump. Jaime himself has few comforting touches to spare for that heap of marred skin. Cersei likewise had little love to give for that now useless limb, finding it only ever bearable whilst coated in gold. And Qyburn’s probing at his stump has Jaime shudder at the mere memory already.

Brienne may be one of the few people, _if not the only one_ , who touched that scar both without hesitance nurtured by disgust and with a certain tenderness you wouldn’t ever expect from that shield maid without a shield.

_Sometimes I wonder what became of that shield I gave to her before I sent her on that foolish quest…_

But not now, really. For that, the tenderness of the touch, however small, however unimportant and fleeting, because Jaime knows that Brienne will coil back the moment on her big blue eyes will greet the new day’s approach, is evading every corner of his sleep-ridden mind.

It brings back unpleasant memories of when his hand was cut off with a rusty _Arakh_ , under much laughter, mockery, ridicule, mud, and pain. _Pain foremost_. It was Brienne who cleaned Jaime up when he couldn’t, tended to him when he couldn’t, and even helped treat the stump whenever she could. Though Jaime reckons that this was more born out of duty than an actual tenderness she may have felt towards him. After all, he was a miserable ass to her most of the time.

_Not that much has changed about that since, but at least I made up for some of it with that foolish leap down the bearpit to save her._

Brienne seems to give him credit for that, still, for all the good it has done her.

But back then, she did not. Yet, thinking back to those moments that went almost unnoticed by him by the time, there was something akin to just that touch Jaime feels against his useless, ugly stump now. This tenderness, a kind of care Brienne apparently doesn’t waste on herself, so Jaime learned after her almost beating herself while tending to her wounds on their way to here.

He turns his head from side to side slowly, letting out a long sigh.

There is something strangely good about that wholly messed-up situation, in that the world seems small enough to be bearable, at least during those little moments. Where the thing most prominent on his mind is something as simple, as small, as fleeting as a touch.

Jaime is aware of what waits beyond the mist, and that he cannot allow for those moments to pull him away from the duties he knows he has on a larger scale, relating to a world beyond the fog surrounding Quiet Isle. However, so long they are here, he might just as well enjoy those small moments, however fleeting they may be, how little they may actually mean in the world’s course.

They are not leaving before Brienne is sufficiently recovered anyway. And that will take some time. He won’t let her rush off half-healed again. She jumped out of the Stranger’s grasp – but only barely so. Thus, Jaime is done taking chances on behalf of her health by all means. If that means staying behind the milky curtain hanging over the muddy lands all around them, then that is so.

That will give him time to prepare for the world beyond, the one he left neglected in favor of… _Brienne._

Simple as that.

But for now… No harm is done in lingering in those small moments of peace, before war break loose again. After all, if there is one thing for certain in this world, then it is that someone will always find a reason to start a war for his or her personal gain, personal trouble, all those things that shouldn’t be fought out on the backs of peasants, soldiers, knights, lords, or the last daughters to a great house.

Jaime closes his eyes, though he is certain he won't slip back into the realm of sleep. Instead, he uses the moment to familiarize himself with the sensations, reckoning that there will be no tenderness for him in the future. Most certainly not by his sister, and if Jaime stands correct, Brienne is better off returning to Tarth, which means he will not see her again either, or feel her fingers press against his ugly little stump as though it was natural somehow.

And so, he dares to close his eyes again, drifting away, leaving it to Brienne to decide when it is time to awaken.

* * *

 

Brienne wakes up to the sound of a seagull shrieking in the distance. For a moment, water rushing has her thinking back to the river in which she almost drowned, but that is when she feels warmth instead of cold, reminding her that this is a thing of the past now, and that in the present, she is alive, at Quiet Isle, with Ser Jaime.

_Ser Jaime._

The mannish woman blinks, trying to adjust her vision as her body curls in and out of itself, breaking out of the stasis of the lingering of sleep, over to the world awaiting them, the future ahead, uncertain and unpredictable, threatening and lethal.

“Good morning,” Jaime greets her as Brienne pries her eyes open slowly, surprising the young woman, who reckoned that he would likely still be fast asleep.

“Good morning,” she mumbles, barely moving her chapped lips apart.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, studying her. The misty light filtered through the fog outside paints her hair a soft shade of silver, giving it an almost unnatural shine by the tips of her unruly curls.

“Not dead,” Brienne replies, flashing of weary upcurve of her lips, not quite a smile, but no display of discontent either.

“I still consider that improvement,” Jaime answers, displaying the smile that she doesn’t.

Brienne looks at him for a long moment. Sleep was quite blissful. She found herself in a comforting nothingness, a black blankness that swallowed her and kept her comfortably warm and dry, as opposed to most recent dreams, the shreds coming to the surface only for a time when she dared to close her eyes, which only ever reminded her of the time she drowned in the river, almost. Strangely so, against all odds of reality, she felt protected, shielded, as though no harm would come to her. It’s only for a time. If only within her dreams.

However, just as oddly, Brienne still finds figments of that feeling resonating right within her at this moment, filtering through the small window, shining down on her. She is so accustomed to worry about how to protect others that she long since forgot about how it feels like to feel protected.

_If only in my dreams after all._

Because she knows that there is no protection, not after what happened, not after what she did, or failed to do.

She turns her gaze back around to Jaime, and as the young woman does, she finds her mind drifting, as though those thoughts do not belong.  

_Even though they do._

“That is more than I ever expected,” Brienne says trying to office smile, but failing.

 _More than I ever dared to wish for_ , Jaime means to say, but then does not.

Brienne sucks her lower lip into her mouth, visibly contemplating.

“What’s going through your mind, wench?” he asks, chuckling softly as she turns her head his way as though he just caught her doing something forbidden.

“I’m just trying to call the new information to mind,” Brienne tells him after a long moment.

“Ah that’s right. I almost forgot. Our impromptu wedding,” he chimes, relishing her growing discomfort. To him, it is quite fascinating to watch, how she wrestles with the new information, tries to make it fit inside a stubborn head, tries to make it fit with her strong moral codex, forbidding hood even the easiest of lies.

“From now on we have to be careful not to give away the game,” Brienne says.

She already struggled to tell the lie to Lady Stonehand and the Brotherhood. Brienne is simply unsure if she can sell more lies after she already wrestled with herself so hard to tell a necessary one. While Jaime acts as though it was absolutely necessary to tell this tale for their own safety, and Brienne finds herself believing him no matter her doubts, she is not convinced that it is as crucial as Jaime makes it out to be. Perhaps it would be for the best to just tell it as it is, instead of making up this most wondrous, outrageous tale that has her as a protagonist, when she knows that this is the role she will never get.

“Well, if you were to truly consider it a game, we may have some fun playing it,” he huffs.

Because to him, it is one of the few pleasures Jaime currently enjoys in all of that misery. 

“That is no joke to me,” Brienne insists.

He leans his head back. “We already agreed on it that it’s for the best.”

She doesn’t get to chicken out now. That seems far unlike her anyway. Brienne is far too brave for that, and too stubbornly honorable all the same.

“I know,” Brienne agrees, blinking. “So… what tale do I have to tell?”

_What song am I supposed to sing?_

Jaime studies her for a long moment, tilting his head to the side, rolling his left wrist in a circular motion. He tries to figure out the emotion glancing back at him, tries to read the message hidden behind blue eyes.

Is she mad? Is she sad? Disappointed? Still in shock? Jaime is not sure. He cannot imagine that Brienne is glad for it, _her scowls and questioning glances have given that much away by now_ , but Jaime would like to think that it is not absolutely horrible for Brienne to tell the tale, let alone imagine it. For that, it was far too enjoyable for him while he still crafted the story by himself.

“Well, as I already said the other night, what I told him is that we are more or less childhood sweethearts from the Stormlands. Granted, there is an age difference, but… I suppose it will not cause too much of an uproar… Stranger things have happened, right? We got out of touch, and met again as you, now a grown… very much tall grown woman… were on your voyage through the Riverlands in search of Sansa Stark,” Jaime recounts, but Brienne gestures at him to stop, much to his disappointment because Jaime was right back in the fictional moment he created, brought into existence, _if only for a time_ , right back on Tarth, with the waves crushing by the shore, the gust catching in his hair, the taste of salt on his tongue, remembering a life not his to live.

“Yes, I remember all that,” Brienne replies, waving her hand lightly at him. “But what else did you tell him?”

_What other foreign tunes will I have to sing with hoarse voice, not knowing the melody?_

“That I used to work for your Lord Father for some years, earning my spurs. Then, I was forced to leave the Sapphire Isle in favor of my home in the Riverlands, to pick up on the family’s business after my father died oh so tragically. I didn’t mention the _privy_ yet, fearing that it may give me away. After all, that story is rather well known around the Seven Kingdoms by now,” he snorts, though the laughter soon fades from his lips once he sees Brienne looking at him, not at all amused. Jaime licks his lips, finding no trace of sat on them, _sadly_.

“Then we met again, after all this time… We found right back to each other and… after a reasonable if short amount of courting, we took our vows under a heart tree. Then a raid by the Brotherhood cast us apart again as we were about to become domestic. I couldn’t find you in the aftermath, only to fish you out of the river at the last second.”

“… What did you tell him about your hand?” she asks, nodding at the amputated limb. He finds himself smirking. She gestures at it in another way, Different from how most other people do it. When she points at it, it seems almost natural, as though she wasn’t pointing at something his body lacked, but at a nothingness that nonetheless belongs to him.

“That I should be more careful with my axe when chopping wood to keep fire in the hearth,” Jaime snorts, wriggling the stump around, irritated by himself that he gestures with it. Normally, Jaime does so by accident, when he is angry or frustrated, or when he forgets that his hand is missing, is no longer there. But right at this moment, Jaime _is_ aware that there is no hand gesture with, but he followed through the motions with his stump, and _meant_ for his stump to make that motion, starts to use it when for the longest of times, he thought that it was just another burden to carry.

“You sincerely told him that?” she asks, her lips _almost_ curving into smile.

“Was I supposed to tell the Elder Brother that some madman thought it would be entertaining to cut it off and hang it around my neck while I puked and pissed myself?” Jaime huffs. “James is… perhaps a bit clumsier than the Lion of Lannister, hm? Who could say?”

Though, considering James’s story, it may actually be that this man is not nearly as clumsy as the Lion of Lannister apparently is. Because he may have lost a hand while cutting wood, but he had a wife and he fished her out of the river before it was too late.

“Did you tell him some tale about what labor _James_ did around Tarth?” Brienne questions, pulling on a loose thread on her roughspun tunic.

“No, but I suppose it might be reasonable to say that I had a chance to squire for the Evenstar, and then took on some odd jobs around Evenfall Hall to earn my livelihood while still there,” Jaime replies, trying his best not to fall back into a memory not his. It is not the time to dream a way too far.

_No matter how tempting it may be._

She chews on her lower lip, lost in thought. “And what forced _James_ back home?”

Jaime tilts his head to the side. While he is glad that Brienne asks for more information, indicating that she is not entirely oppose to the small world he crafted in the vain hope to provide protection without shield or sword, there is something in the way the wench acts that has Jaime irritated even more than his gesturing with the stump has.

“Family duties,” he responds curtly.

“But _what_ family duties?” Brienne wants to know.

He swallows, suddenly finding it hard to gather the words which almost poured out of him while he spoke to the Elder Brother, sure that for once, the swiftness of his tongue was put to good use as he spun the net meant to protect Brienne and him from too many questions. “Well, as I said, James’s father died. Someone had to take care of the family.”

Brienne bows her head at that, not looking him in the eye. A few loose strands of her flaxen hair fall into her broad face, taking any opportunity away from Jaime to read her expression.

And that starts to irritate him, too.

“And what of his family now?” Brienne asks quietly, her gaze still averted.

“Hm?” Jaime frowns, blinking. He can see her chewing on her broad, chapped lip again, but Brienne stubbornly keeps her big blue eyes away from him, hides them away from him.

And he doesn’t like that at all, Jaime has to realize.

“Well, _James_ went back to the Riverlands to look after his family, you said. To be there for them, after his father died. To take up on the duties of the oldest son… Then… he met that ugly girl he knew back from Tarth again and they got wed on a whim, but… what got him to leave his home and not go back to his family thereafter, when that is what brought him away from the isle in the first place?” Brienne questions, her voice strangely raw, cautious, like a doe peaking its head out of high grass, fearing for a wolf to jump out to tear her own and take a pound of her flesh.

Jaime blinks, unsure if they are still talking about _James_ at this point, but rather the man known as the Kingslayer. Inside Jaime’s mind, James was very much removed from himself, the kind of man he may even have liked to be, but still the kind of man he could never be. James seemed much more honorable than the Kingslayer, much more set on doing the right thing, more like Brienne than anything else. The kind of man Lord Selwyn Tarth would have liked to have in his company, and perhaps even would have considered to have grown to deserve his daughter’s hand in marriage.

That in itself seemed like something Jamie knew he would _never_ achieve, and instead left it to _James_ to do. James seemed like the man who could do it, who could live this life, this tale.

But now… It seems to be the case that James’s story is far closer to him than Jaime ever dared to believe possible, if only in those aspects that Jaime would rather forget about, only when it comes to those pages Jaime would rather leave blank.

While Jaime thought that he could write the story he wanted to tell henceforth, it seems like there is no way of escaping the chapters already written. Even when he can start from scratch, he ends up with a mirror image of himself. And Jaime is not sure if he likes with image stares back at him from the other side of the mirror.

“… Well, _James_ took his vows under a heart tree, said the words and meant them, and he takes his vows very seriously, you must know. After all, in contrast to _some_ , he is no Oathbreaker, in fact, he seems to be a man of honor, for all I know. So… when his now wedded wife was in trouble, James had to go and find her. He _had_ to get her. There was no way around it. He just had to. There was no other choice,” Jaime says.

 _The only choice_ , he thinks to himself, and only to himself.

Brienne’s head shoots up for a moment, blue flashing at Jaime even through the curtain of flaxen hair. However, both hide away before inside themselves all too fast, doe and roebuck retreating back into the safety of the long grass shielding them from the wolf of unspoken words.

“Even after the raid in the town?” she asks, her eyes hidden away again.

Brienne doesn’t know if she is pushing it too far, down a path they can’t return to once they start leaving footsteps on it.

_Should I even ask these questions? Am I allowed to? Or is that a chapter I should leave closed? Isn’t that a book that’s only he can write and that is not mine to read, mine to know?_

Jaime nods his head slowly. “Even after the raid, yes. Life depended on it. That of his wife. James lost her out of sight once, he didn’t want to let that happen again. Ever.”

He tears his gaze back up, surprised to find Brienne looking at him without the silvery veil of her hair obscuring her big blue eyes.

“Rather straightforward, is it not?” Jaime asks, smiling a smile that should be James’s but is actually his.

“Not to everyone… but seemingly to… _James_ ,” Brienne says uncertainly.

Jaime rolls his shoulders. “Seemingly. He is one of a kind.”

_There are no men like…_

“Anything else I need to know?” Brienne questions. Jaime shakes his head, letting out a sigh. “That’s all I told the Elder Brother about James, his… life story, shall I say? I hope that most of that will suffice. I am already tired of his constant questioning.”

“He wants to know the isle protected. I understand that,” Brienne argues.

 _Like you_ , she wants to say, but then does not.

“That he does indeed.” Jaime nods his head in agreement. “I understand that you trust him. That you _want_ to trust him. This septon seems to be an honorable man, I do not deny it. He probably even is. But I also hope that you understand that I’m trying to protect… us… in case he is not on… our side.”

“Yes, I understand that. If you think that this is for the best, then… it probably is… I trust your judgement, Ser,” Brienne replies slowly. “I… trust you.”

Jaime finds himself smiling at that, almost feeling light-headed for a moment there. He cannot remember the last time that someone outside his family said to him that he or she trusted him, and _meant_ it. Neither can he seem to recall how good it feels, because it does, it makes him feel a kind of warmth spread deep inside him where normally cold resides and takes a hold of him.

“Well, I hope not to disappoint that trust,” Jaime says once he gathered himself again. “But in any case, I think it is high time that we head out. We cannot stay here forever.”

Even though he would like to.

_If only for a time. A small forever._

“That is unless you don’t feel up to it,” Jaime stammers once he looks back at Brienne, reminding himself of her injuries, finding images of her lifeless boy afloat in a river swimming back into his mind, all the bad reflecting in a wolf’s eyes, lingering beyond the high grass.

Brienne straightens up, stretches her long limbs as though to show him that she can move, that she is up to a fight, if only to battle against her morals, whispering at her to be honorable, mumbling at her not to lie. “I feel much better, Ser, thank you. It’s as you say, we should head out.”

_We have to get started._

“I bet you want to see Pod,” he says, offering an understanding smile, which she returns as much as she can. “About as much as he wants to see you.”

“And let’s just hope that we can bypass the Elder Brother. At least for a while,” Brienne adds. She gets up slowly, standing perhaps not as tall as she usually does, but a bit more than she did before. “Then we should get ready.”

“Indeed. _Wife_ ,” he chuckles, to which Brienne only ever rolls her eyes at him, amused.

Once they changed into fresh clothes, slipped into their costumes, their second skins, they head towards the door. Both stop for a moment there, however, hesitating, suddenly uncertain whether they can pull this off, whether they can sing the song, tell the story now meant to be theirs.

But then they peak their heads out of the tall grass, walk out into the open, lingering behind thick mist, ready to face the wolf out here, watching them, anticipating their movements, waiting for them to trip, to fall. Leaving memories not theirs behind in the chamber, though perhaps to return to their comforting warmth later the day.

Once outside, Brienne takes in familiar surroundings, the small mill, the mud and pools all around, glistening in the sun hiding away behind thick veils of clouds, the small houses and sparse patches of green in an otherwise gray and brown environment.

“Do you know where to?” Jaime asks, glancing around with a grimace.

“Don’t you?” Brienne asks, frowning.

“I spent most of my time in the chamber, what did you expect?” Jaime scoffs, looking around, as though it was natural, as though it meant nothing that he did that to know her safe.

Brienne frowns to herself, blinking.

_He stayed with me…_

“We should head over there,” the young woman then says, trying to distract herself from the thought altogether.

Because it means nothing in the end.

It only confirms something that she long since knows: Ser Jaime is a man with a strange kind of honor, who will feel responsible enough for a woman the likes of her even in times such as these, after all that happened between them.

“Just remember that once we are among other people we are to act… _married_ … around them,” Jaime mutters, turning his head in her direction, leaning in a little closer.

Brienne glares at him, her big blue eyes shrinking to narrow slits. “And how would _that_ look like according to you?”

“Well, for one, not hitting me in the back of the head or constantly scowling at me would perhaps be a good starting point,” Jaime laughs easily.

“As far as I know, there aren’t only happy marriages,” Brienne points out to him.

“But _wife_ , we can frame this tale however we please, so _of course_ we are very happily married. Even more so after you returned to me from the dead,” Jaime tells her, flashing an easy smile, which has her only ever scowl at him, much to his amusement.

They can choose to be whatever they want to be – if only for a time. The only within that narrative, this most wondrous story, this impossible tale.

It is curious how liberating it almost feels, which has Jaime wondering whether the freedom comes from the fact that it is a lie, a fiction, some pleasant tale to tell in the wake of the darkness all around them, or from the content of the lie that brings about this force with him, that the chance is there, if only inside their minds.

“I still don’t think it will be very successful,” Brienne argues, pulling Jaime out of his pleasant thoughts stuck in a limbo of what if. “Hyle knows that we are not wed.”

 _And ever the more importantly, I look the way I look. I am who I am. Who would want to wed me_ _anyway_? Brienne thinks to herself bitterly, feeling the hot pounding of the healing wound on her cheek ever the more painfully right at this moment. _I am not made of the stuff that it takes for those stories to have a happy ending. That is not my role to play, my song to sing. Who are we trying to fool, Ser?_

“What do I concern myself with what _that_ fellow may think or not think?” Jaime huffs. “The lion does not concern itself with the opinion of the sheep.”

“I am just saying that it’s something to bear in mind,” Brienne replies, rolling her broad shoulders.

Jaime only ever shrugs at her in reply. “If he wants to give away the game, I’ll punch him in the face, easy as that. I still have one hand to do the job. Granted, not the golden one. Thanks to you. It’s actually quite good to smack people with, I learned.”

“You will do no such thing!” Brienne retorts now almost angrily, which does nothing to lift Jaime’s mood – because he would rather not have her defend a man who left her to the dogs, or the Brotherhood for that matter.

“Of course I will. I do what is necessary,” Jaime retorts.

He will do whatever it takes to keep her safe. And if that means punching some wimp’s teeth out, then so he will. Jaime gave that Ronnet Connington the taste of gold that he deserved, and he has no trouble repeating that with the likes of Hyle Hunt, particularly because now it’s not just Brienne’s honor that is at stake, but her very safety.

And frankly, Jaime is done taking risks on that precise matter.

“He fought bravely and came with me even though he was under no obligation to do such,” Brienne insists.

No matter the wager, Brienne knows that she owes this man after what they have been through. She owes him a debt for his life, and young Podrick’s, too. And that despite the fact that Bienne would rather not owe anyone any debts, Jaime included, if not foremost. They all weigh heavy on her heart, her mind, because she does not even know how to begin to repay, or in what currency. And Brienne just doesn’t know how much her heart can still take. It feels as though it was made of glass as of late anyway, always on the verge of breaking apart, shuttering into a thousand pieces never to be put back together again.

 “And he left you to die,” Jaime argues, kicking at some stone he finds, though it only rolls once, thanks to the mud keeping it in place.

_Where is the honor in that, wench?_

“Upon _my_ request,” Brienne argues.

She asked him for it, and Hyle understood. That was what she asked of him. He brought Podrick and himself to safety. That was all Brienne ever wanted when confronted with this impossible choice she had to make. And she considers it a fortune that Ser Hyle did not fight her on that matter. Or else her plan may never have gone the way it did.

_He may not have shown me much respect for a very long time, but he respected my choice that day, and that is all that should matter now._

“It doesn’t matter whether you asked for it or not. He shouldn’t have taken the offer. It’s just that simple,” Jaime argues, his ghost hand twitching at that.

“I demanded it of him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jaime grounds out.

“Of course it does!”

“What matters is that he left you there,” Jaime retorts.

It matters because that man never should have abandoned her. It matters because he left when he is the knight who should have protected her.  It matters because she is a nobly born lady.

It matters because it is her.

It matters because of her.

_It simply matters._

“Wife, when will you finally understand that you don’t get to oppose me on those matters?” Jaime sighs, trying to strike a lighter tune, to slip back into his second skin as means of escape of the thought that starts to creep into his mind.

Is he truly angry at this Ser Hyle or at himself?

“Ser Hyle almost died because of me. I will not allow further harm being done to him than was already inflicted thanks to his affiliation to me and my cause, period,” Brienne insists stubbornly, gritting her teeth.

Jaime exhales wearily.

_Her honorable intentions shall be damned._

The woman sees goodness in men the likes of him far more often than she should. That red priest she mentioned who drowned her has her sympathy, has her understanding, only just because she asked for it. And that Ser Hyle? It’s the same bloody thing: Brienne will see the honor in his act because she asked for it. Yet, just because Brienne asked for it doesn’t mean it makes it honorable to carry out the request.

_No matter that the wench is made of nothing but stubborn honor. They shouldn’t have done that if there was only an ounce of honor in them. That’s not what honorable men do, simple as that._

And Jaime should know. With his shit sense for honor, the knight knew that he never should have left her at Harrenhal, until he came to get her. Jaime knew that there was no honor to that act, but those men? Are they supposed to pride themselves with fulfilling a request of that sort? Not if anyone were to ask him.

Brienne is a nobly born lady, heir to a high lord in the Stormlands, a man admired and respected by most. Knights the sort of Ser Hyle should vow to Brienne’s service instead of letting her carry it out instead.

Though then again, perhaps that is what pains Jaime most about it: He is not any better in that he sent her out to that mission instead of going himself. And that thought is perhaps most disturbing, that, in a sense, he is truly no better than a man he would like to lynch for leaving Brienne with the Brotherhood.

So perchance the wench has the rights of it by telling him that he has no rights to judge someone the likes of Ser Hyle. Because he has done the same thing, if in a different way.

Perhaps the gravest grief comes from the realization that you are not any better.

That you are just like them.

That there are, in fact, men like you.

“… As you will, but if he misbehaves himself towards you, I do get to smack him,” Jaime concludes stubbornly, not wanting to let it show that those disturbing thoughts keep dancing before his eyes as they continue walking past small houses over muddy paths.

Something shifts in Brienne’s homely face, in her presence altogether, that Jaime cannot put. He is inclined to think that there is a hint of a smile, but far too small to break out of the bud to come to full bloom. Instead, there is a different intake of air and a small shake of her head.

“Well, we should be on our way, _wife_. It’s not like we can stay in that room forever. And I am very curious to find out what that good Brother would want from us.”

“Likely call us out on how this is all a lie.”

“We will have to see.”

Thus, they proceed further up the small hill, towards a cluster of buildings among which a small windmill keeps turning without relent, reckoning that some people will be there. However, the two don’t get to walk far, as suddenly, the Elder Brother approaches with slow if determined steps, leaving no doubt that he means to speak to them. The two stop, waiting for the older man to catch up to them.

“Seven blessings to you. I didn’t expect you to be up already,” the Elder Brother greets them as he reaches them. “In fact, I would have thought that you wouldn’t be able to walk for at least another day, going by the condition you were in when you came here again.”

“Brienne was in dire need of some fresh air. She had no fever, so I thought it was fine to take her,” Jaime replies promptly, all the while wondering how that tall man manages to appear out of nowhere.

“Well, she looks far better than she did when she arrived. Th air will surely help vitalize her spirits again,” the Elder Brother answers, flashing her a small smile, which Brienne fails to return in equal measure. Instead, she quickly averts her gaze.

“Though you should take it easy,” he goes on to warn. “From what I heard, and for what I saw, it is more of a miracle that you are still drawing a living breath, Lady Brienne.”

“I try my best to keep on breathing,” Brienne answers somewhat feebly.

She doesn’t have much of a choice but do that anyway.

Living is now no choice anymore, it seems, because she is bound to live on, at least for now.

“I will have another look at you later. We don’t want to risk the fever to come back again,” the Elder Brother tells her. “And your wounds still need tending to. While you might have some of your strengths back, the infection and strain on your body should not be underestimated. I can’t stress that enough.”

Jaime continues to get that sense that he is not the only one bearing secrets as he watches the man gesture, hears him speak, listens to the intonation, the voice. There is something particular about that man beside his tall frame and curious nature as far as he got to see it. There is something in his eyes that is looking at Jaime the whole time, though he cannot read the message.

“Many thanks, Elder Brother,” Brienne answers.

“Well, I’d suggest that if you are up to it, we might make for the common hall together?” the Elder Brother suggests. “I’d imagine you might be hungry, and at this time of the day, we serve some food there.”

“It’s most kind of you to bother to escort us,” Jaime says with a faux smile.

They start towards the cluster of buildings. Jaime glances on with a mixture of nervousness and interest as the houses peek their heads out of the thick mist to reveal their true shapes to him, after he only ever caught outlines of them when he came to the Quiet Isle for the first time. The wooden sept with its leaded glass windows and wide doors with carvings resembling the Mother and the Father catches his interest for a longer moment.

 _For that they mean to keep men and women apart so strictly, it seems almost ironic that they have united Mother and Father, man and woman, in the eyes of the Seven after all_ , Jaime thinks to himself, looking at the carvings as they almost seem to dance a moment there as they motion past them, the shadows changing their shape as their perspective keeps shifting.

“You did not yet tell me whether you had any plans as to what to do once your lady wife is back to you health,” the Elder Brother comments, walking slightly ahead of them, not turning his head, hands folded in his bell sleeves.

“Oh, that is because I didn’t make plans yet, good brother,” Jaime answers. “I was more concerned with my wife’s wellbeing at this point of time. You might be able to imagine that this had me very much preoccupied.”

“Of course, of course. Well, it’s something you ought to think about these days, though, I am afraid. Many things are on the move, and only few for good,” the Elder Brother sighs, shaking his head. “Sieges come and go. Raids sweep across the lands. Cities burn. People die – and not all are as fortunate as Lady Brienne and come out of it alive somehow. And to make it all worse… Winter has Come.”

“Well, some would say that in such a messy situation, all plans are for nothing anyway,” Jaime comments as they continue down the muddy paths.

“Whereas some would say that it is those times that require oneself to look straight ahead, with a goal in mind, or else one is bound to get lost in the upcoming storm,” the Elder Brother argues, not looking at Jaime at all.

“From which I take that you have a plan in mind, good brother?” Jaime questions, frowning.

“Oh, the likes of me are _very_ limited in that which they can do, you must know. A nobleman has choices available to him that I don’t, as a brother of the Faith. We are here to deal with whatever is swept to our shores, be it rubies, driftwood, or people. That doesn’t mean I don’t see the merit that comes in… well, taking action,” the older man points out, his tune light, though the message seems to weigh much heavier than his tone lets on.

“If that is the way you think, I can’t help but wonder why you took on a duty that required passivity from you rather than action, Elder Brother,” Jaime argues.

“Because I don’t consider this passivity. I consider it… waiting,” the other man replies.

Jaime frowns at that. “For what?”

“That the Seven sweep something to our shores that turns the tide.”

They proceed towards a small building set within the complex, and it is then that Jaime notices noises for the very first time, voices, people not them or the Elder Brother. The three make their way inside the common hall.

“If you excused me? Someone seems to need a word with me,” the Elder Brother says, waving over at a man gesturing at him. Jaime lets a silent sigh of relief at that, always feeling as though he was making his confessions when talking to the man.

“He is definitely on to something,” Jaime mutters, leaning a little closer to Brienne, who nods her head.

“Well, what did you expect?” she argues. “The tale you spun is rather outrageous after all.”

That the two of them are married? To Brienne, it’s still a miracle the Elder Brother ever had any faith in this claim being true.

“Not more outrageous than what actually happened,” Jaime argues.

“Still an outrageous tale to tell.”

 _It seems not so outrageous for the likes of James to live, though_ , Jaime thinks to himself as he lets his gaze wander about the common hall. _The likes of James may well be smarter than the likes of me, making good on promises, being honorable, making sure that the people he cared about were with him, working for a steady life instead of one hidden away in the shadows of the Red Keep…_

Jaime calls his attention back to the chamber, though, not wanting to ponder all that he is not that James well could be in his stead, instead letting his irritation ring louder and louder inside his mind. The common hall is not what Jaime imagined when he heard that they had such a thing. He is not even sure just what he expected to see, but it isn’t quite what he had in mind. Most common halls have an aura of life to them, no matter the dire situations. Some tune coming from a lute or bagpipes was something Jaime always linked to common halls inside his mind, but his thoughts and the soft murmurs of people glancing into their soup bowls are the loudest noises travelling past his ears.

_Quiet Isle indeed._

“I can’t see Ser Hyle,” Brienne comments, her big blue eyes dancing about the room without the bounce of a beat or the rhythm of a lighter tune. “Can you?”

“Thank the Seven no,” Jaime mutters under his breath, but then his attention is drawn another direction, so he adds in a lighter voice, “Oh, but I seem to see a familiar face at last.”

 _And one that is more welcome than the other most certainly_ , Jaime thinks to himself.

For a moment he forgets that he is standing on Brienne’s left, which is why he taps his stump against her arm to grab her attention instead of using the limb that actually has the fingers to carry out the task with. While the mannish woman seems to pay no mind to it, Jaime’s mind remains transfixed on that matter for a moment longer, because they are wide awake, outside of the chamber, and she seems not to make the difference that one ought to make.

“Podrick,” Brienne mumbles, her jaw suddenly lax again. While she remembers having seen the boy when they arrived and how that made her heart flood with emotions she didn’t even know that pound of flesh could hold after all the damage it already took, it’s quite something else to see the boy now without feeling on the verge of passing out.

The lad turns his head in their direction, his gaze somewhat lighting up when he catches sight of the two. He quickly puts his soup bowl aside before hopping off the bench he sat on, dangling his lean legs over the edge, and starts to rush towards them, a bounce in his step Brienne did not anticipate.

“Quite an eager squire,” Jaime comments, amused, though he is not surprised that Brienne’s gaze and attention remains on the young boy coming up to them.

“M’lady ser, you’re finally better?” the lad asks when he reaches them at last.

“Yes, thank you,” Brienne answers, squatting her knees to take a better look at the boy. He looks almost the same as when they first came to the isle, even if life and death have passed between them ever since their stay. “I hope you are better again, too, after…”

She cannot finish either the thought or the sentence as the lad grabs a hold of her arm and holds on tight. Brienne is very much at a loss, never having anticipated such a reaction from the boy who wants to be a knight, wants to be a squire, even if that means squiring for an ugly, mannish woman who couldn’t knight him even if she wanted.

“They wouldn’t let me over to the quarters, no matter how often I asked,” the boy complains, looking earnestly hurt over the matter.

“I am sorry that I had you worried or even scared. That wasn’t my intention,” Brienne tells the lad.

 _None of your fright or pain was my intention_ , she adds to herself.

“Oh, I wasn’t scared, m’lady ser, fret not. I am a brave little squire. After all, you taught me well,” Pod argues, looking up at her with a kind of smile Brienne didn’t dare to think to see on him ever again after what he was put through by tagging along.

“You are indeed a very brave squire, Podrick,” Brienne agrees, offering a feeble curve of her broad lips, on the verge of being a smile. “Braver than most I ever met, if not the bravest.”

“Well, I am just glad that we are all here now, well and sound, though you still seem to need some time to recover fully,” Pod says, gesturing at the bandages scattered about her mannish body.

“I will, I assure you,” Brienne answers.

“Good, because I need to get more lessons at the sword, so I can defend myself better next time we fight the Brotherhood,” the boy goes on to say, much to Brienne’s shock.

“ _The next time we fight the Brotherhood_? Podrick, that fight won’t take place, be sure of that,” Brienne argues, chewing on her lower lip. “You won’t have to face them ever again. I will see to it that you are protected from them.”

“Oh, I am sure you will, but isn’t it that we have to get your sword back from them?” Podrick questions, tilting his head to the side, all the while keeping his arms loosely wrapped around Brienne’s limb extended to him slightly.

“My sword… Podrick, that should be the least of your concerns. You ought to focus on getting better now foremost,” Brienne argues.

While her heart still feels heavy at the loss of this most formidable blade, it didn’t even cross her mind that Podrick would think about how she ought to get it back.

“I am as healthy as ever. One of the women even sewed me a neckcloth. I asked her if she could make it look like your shield, with the oak and the fallen star, and look, she’s done it! Now you can’t even see the bruises anymore, though I hardly felt them in a few days’ time anyway,” Pod insists, gesturing at his neckcloth, which indeed bears some small semblance to the shield Brienne had to leave as well. “Once you are good again, I am good to go against the Brotherhood to get your magic sword back!”

“And yet, you need time to heal up. And yet… the Brotherhood is something you should keep far out of your mind. We will see to it that you get a new purpose as a squire, but it won’t be hunting down the Brotherhood, to be sure,” the blonde woman tells him.

“But your sword! And we have to get back at them for…,” Pod means to say, but Brienne is quick to interrupt him, “We will do no such thing.”

“But now we have a chance of winning! Last time, the fight was simply unfair. You stood no chance just because they had you outnumbered and took you by surprise. Now we can go back, ready and with swords in hand – and win!” Podrick insists.

Brienne shakes her head at that. “I will not put you in danger like that ever again, Podrick.”

_One time was enough, more than enough, more than my heart can take…_

“I want to be a knight. You don’t become one if you run from danger,” the young lad insists, puckering his lips, now looking utterly disappointed.

“No, but you live long enough to become one by choosing your missions with more care,” Brienne argues.

 _And not repeat the mistakes the woman you squire for made in the past_ , the young woman adds only to herself.

“I think we should fight them. Ser Hyle is plenty angry at the Brotherhood and the Lady Stoneheart, too. And Ser… I mean James… he’s surely up for a fight, are you not?” Pod asks, turning his attention to Jaime, seemingly hoping that he will back him up on his plan to defeat the Brotherhood like the heroes tend to do in the tales and children’s books.

“Oh, Lady Brienne has the rights of it saying that a knight should choose his battles wisely,” Jaime tells him, offering a reassuring smile, squatting down slightly, too. “And for now, the battles to be won are those of recovery – and that very special task I gave into your care, you do recall?”

“Oh, I did what you asked me, of course,” Pod answers, standing up a little straighter.

“No less did I expect from the bravest squire in all of the Seven Kingdoms,” Jaime chuckles. “Any news on that front?”

“Two birds came from the South, but none flew back. No riders or other people who came to the isle since you arrived. No one’s left either,” Podrick reports.

Jaime steals a quick glance at Brienne, who seems honestly relieved that he managed to focus the lad’s attention away from his quest of getting her sword back from the Brotherhood.

“One can always rely on your sharp eyes, then. Well done,” Jaime tells the lad, who beams at him in turn.

That means that unless the birds learned to take a detour to deceive people observing them, no bird came even from direction of where the Brotherhood has its hideout, which is a relief for Jaime. While he dares to hope that the brothers around here are not part of that brotherhood, one cannot be cautious enough, granted what happened back these days, relying on things to just carry on as they usually did.

The world is changing and they still have to find a way to keep up with its pace again.

“I am trying my best,” Pod tells him.

“And that is more than good enough,” Brienne assures him.

“You should eat something before they end the meal. Come with, I’ll show you where to,” Podrick says, giving Brienne’s arm one more squeeze before letting go to walk ahead. Brienne straightens back up again.

“Is everything alright?” Jaime asks her quietly.

“Yes, yes, I just… I expected a different reaction,” she mutters, her eyes following the lad’s light steps, which she thought to be heavy, when in fact they are not.

“Such as?” Jaime questions.

 _That he hates me about as much as I hate myself for putting him danger? That he is scared? That he wants nothing to do anymore with knighthood after what he went through?_ Brienne means to suggest, but then does not. Instead, she answers, “More reservation, perhaps. Shock foremost.”

“Well, you said it, he’s a brave little fellow. One of these days, Pod may make for a fine knight, which is a small miracle, considering that he was more or less the cupbearer for Tyrion Lannister – _for all I have heard people say_. How would _I_ know, right?” Jaime argues, offering a teasing kind of grin.

“I don’t know, it’s just… I expected some many things to be different from what they are now, or at the least, what they seem to be,” Brienne sighs.

Jaime tilts his head to the side slightly. “And is that for bad?”

“I am not yet certain. That he wants to go after the Brotherhood has me worried, that much I can tell for sure,” Brienne exhales wearily, finding her heart pound faster at the mere thought.

Because the images of the noose around Podrick’s neck tightening are still too fresh on her mind to ignore.

“Well, he won’t ride into battle without his lady knight riding the way first, so you should be more aware of your position. A squire follows the knight he squires for, not the other way around,” Jaime comments. “Though you seem to need to learn lessons of your position much more than I ever estimated.”

_The wench doesn’t even seem to know of the power her name carries._

“Will you leave that now?” Brienne grumbles.

“Why should I, _wife_? You should know me better than that,” Jaime argues a little louder, enjoying the change of mood, the change of rhythm in their steps and tone of voice. “When do I ever leave such a matter alone, you tell me?”

“Never.”

“Precisely. And for now, we should actually follow the squire for once, because he is right, the soup might get cold if we go on wasting time talking about those what ifs and maybes. There are far too many of those already out there anyway.”

“Yes.”

The two then simply follow the lad’s lead, grab their bowls with grayish soup and a chunk of dry bread, and sit down on either side of the boy on the bench he occupied before. Jaime is glad that it’s a stew he can simply take spoonful from instead of having to humiliate himself struggling with knife and fork.

Podrick, meanwhile, seems to be a waterfall that just managed to break a dam, the words pouring out of his mouth, only ever stopping for a moment to catch his breath before recounting this thing that he saw and that thing that he heard, seemingly very eager to inform his lady knight of all that happened in her absence.

 _She seems to have taught him duty more thoroughly than is perchance good for the lad – or for our ears_ , Jaime thinks to himself, though amused at the way Brienne listens to him attentively, reminding him very much of the maids who sit with royal children and dutifully listen to all that they have to babble about, though they likely have far more important matters to handle.

_Almost like a mother, actually…_

“… And then I told Ser Hyle that he ought to do as James told us yet again. He was not at all pleased, but I insisted,” Podrick goes on, finishing up the rest of his soup.

“I hope you had an eye on him that he does not spoil the surprise for the Elder Brother,” Jaime says in a lowered voice, though he makes sure to keep his smile in place, so not to draw attention to themselves.

“Of course I did. Though I don’t think he’s said anything to the Elder Brother, or else he would act differently, don’t you think?” Podrick answers, craning his neck.

“I surely hope so,” Jaime agrees. “Where did you leave him?”

“Hm? Oh, he said he couldn’t stand the stew just one more time. He said he wanted to ask the brothers whether they had some of their arbor to spare. He was not in a good mood today, that much I can say,” Podrick tells him, shrugging his shoulders.

“Well, let’s hope the arbor does not loosen up his tongue.”

“Well, he can’t loosen it up to the Elder Brother so long he is here around us,” Brienne points out quietly, lifting the spoon to her mouth to swallow some of the broth. While her throat still protests, her whole body seems to warm up as the stew pours down, making her realize yet again that, yes, she is alive, and that, yes, her body is demanding from her so she can get better again.

“True,” Jaime confirms.

“And I still want to know the whole story of how you managed to trick the Brotherhood, m’lady ser,” Pod goes on to say. “Once time allows.”

“I didn’t really trick them, I am afraid,” Brienne argues.

_No heroic tale to tell regarding that matter, simple chance, for all it seems._

Because Brienne had no intention of surviving, had no plan up her sleeve. She let her head be dipped underwater, expecting one of those desperate breaths for air to be her last.

_But how do you explain that to a young boy who still dares to believe in knights and their undying will to fight?_

“Well, you must have had a very smart plan to fool the Lady Stoneheart,” Pod insists. “How else would you have gotten out?”

“As you said, we should leave that talk for another time,” Brienne argues, though she makes sure to keep her voice soft, no matter how rough it sounds because it is still sore.

“As you will,” Podrick agrees, smirking at her.

They continue their meal in silence, befitting of the isle they are currently visitors of, listening to the quiet melody without lutes and bagpipes, without people singing or talking loudly, instead getting carried away by the silent rhythms of wooden spoons scooping up the remains of the stew at the bottom of the bowls, silent murmurs, the sigh of the wind creeping through the crevices of the building, and the creaking of the wood as people shuffle their feet across the floor.

“M’lady ser?” Pod asks after a while, breaking perhaps not the silence, but the most silent of tunes.

“Yes, Podrick?” Brienne answers, looking at the boy.

“I wanted to ask one more thing.”

“Then go ahead,” she tells him.

“You won’t be leaving without me again, right? While with the Brotherhood, you had me go while you stayed, I just wanted to be sure that this does not happen again. I wouldn’t fancy that, at all,” Podrick questions, looking at a grease drop swimming back and forth in the last bit of soup at the bottom of his bowl.

“I won’t be going anywhere any time soon,” Brienne answers, biting on her chapped lower lip.

“I am more concerned of when you are back to health again. Will you leave me then? I don’t want to stay on the isle forever,” Pod argues. “I won’t become a knight if I stay here for the rest of my days, and I don’t want to join the Faith at all.”

“I won’t leave you with the brothers of the Faith if you don’t want that, Podrick, be certain of that,” Brienne assures the lad.

“But will you send me away?” he asks again, his voice suddenly very meek, very raw, reminding Brienne for a moment there of when she rode up to Lady Stoneheart to demand his and Ser Hyle’s freedom in exchange for her own imprisonment, and the death of “Jaime Lannister,” or at the least, whom they were led to believe was hanging over the back of her horse.

“Why do you think that?” she questions quietly.

“Because last time you did, to protect me, I am most sure, you left nevertheless, and who would I squire for if not you?” Podrick answers, sucking his lips into his mouth, suddenly looking very much miserable.

 _Ser Hyle or Ser Jaime, any knight who can actually take you for a squire to make you a knight, and not just have you travel along as she pretends to be one of them_ , Brienne feels tempted to suggest, but stops herself from it, noting the honest distress the boy seems to feel, judging by the way he grips the soup bowl, fighting for composure.

Brienne thought what filled the lad with most fright was having been taken captive, having been hanged, but here sits young Podrick Payne, seemingly frightened of all but one thing, namely that she abandons him.

_And that even though I thought there was nothing to hold me in this world…_

“I won’t leave without you, unless it is your wish to go someplace else. And to that place you will go, I will make certain of that,” Brienne consoles him, finding herself patting the back of his dark-haired head, shocking herself. She is not the kind of person to offer comfort, or receive it for that matter, out of fright that she will be too rough, too coarse, but the lad looking up at her with hope in his dark eyes has Brienne think that maybe even she can offer a gentleness, stature and attitude notwithstanding.

“Do you promise me that?” he asks.

“I promise,” Brienne answers, fearing that she will choke on the words, but in fact does not.

To her even greater surprise, however, the lad’s mood seems to shift back to where it was before he started staring at the grease drop in his soup bowl to ask the question he didn’t dare pose before.

“Then it’s all good. M’lady ser always keeps her oaths,” he chimes.

 _If only you knew_ …, Brienne thinks only to herself, though when she dares to steal a glance at Jaime, the young woman is surprised to find him nodding his head silently at the boy’s comment, all the while finishing up his soup.

Once all have eaten up, the three carry their bowls back to where the brothers silently pile them up to clean them, thanking them for their work, before proceeding towards the door.

From the corner of his eye, Jaime can see the Elder Brother still talking to some of the folks coming up to him again and again, which he reckons is a fortune, because that means they can bypass being probed for more information until later the day, at least.

“Will you be heading back to your quarters?” Podrick asks as they get outside, though the light hardly changes, the fog and mist still hanging heavy over the isle, swallowing up most of the light.

“I think we should. I wouldn’t fancy my lady wife to faint into my arms yet again,” Jaime chuckles softly, even more amused at Brienne glowering at him in return.

“But you will be there for dinner, yes?” the lad questions, seemingly eager to stay in their company, though Jaime can’t begrudge him. He can’t imagine that the company of the silent brothers or Ser Hyle are suited for a boy his age and interests.

“I’d suppose so,” Jaime confirms, thus.

“Oh, good, then I will see about the birds again.”

“But don’t strain yourself,” Brienne reminds him.

“I won’t, I am strong, after all. And brave, you said so yourself,” Podrick answers, already turning to leave towards his favorite spot.

“That you are indeed,” Brienne agrees, nodding her head.

_More than you will ever know…_

“Then I will see you later,” the boy says, waving at them.

“Take care.”

With that, the lad skips down the muddy paths, soon eaten by the silvery mist.

“Are you a little calmer now that you have seen him?” Jaime asks quietly, though to Brienne’s relief without his usual air of sarcasm. Ser Jaime seems to understand very well that her worry for the lad is heartfelt, for which she is glad.

Just because she is not the kind of woman who is a caretaker, that doesn’t mean she feels like taking care of the people close to her, after all.

“I am relieved that is faring much better than I first estimated. It’s truly a blessing,” Brienne says, looking at the spot at which Pod disappeared into the thick mist.

“I don’t know if it’s a blessing, but it’s a fortune, on that much we can agree,” Jaime answers.

“Do you think we should seek out Ser Hyle before we head back?” she asks.

“I think that it can wait until dinner. The Elder Brother and Podrick pointed out rightly that we still have to make sure that you get your rest, my lady wife,” Jaime says, back to his teasing voice that has Brienne only ever roll her big blue eyes at him.

“This is going to end in a mess and you know it,” she exhales wearily.

“That depends on how well you keep singing the song that they played at our lavish wedding,” Jaime argues as they start down the path from which they came, back to the chamber hopefully still holding some of the warmth, some of the comfort that they felt earlier in the day, when it was just them for a moment in time.

“ _Lavish_? I thought James was a poor man,” Brienne comments, daring to think that, perchance, if only for a fraction of time, she might play this game, sing this song, or at last, hum along while Jaime keeps composing new stanzas for this impossible tale.

“Oh, James will find the means for the things that matter, you must know. And weddings are certainly matters that one ought to celebrate in all their great extravagance,” Jaime snickers.

“What happened to the private wedding?” the mannish woman asks.

“There is always a wedding feast for the rest – and those are big and, well, lavish. Don’t you remember, wife? How we danced?”

“Ah, I seem to have forgotten for a moment, apologies.”

Brienne stops by the septry for a moment, glancing up the carvings in the wooden doors, resembling the Mother and the Father, their hands parted when they stand open, but united when the doors are closed.

“Do you need another moment or can we go back?” she can hear Jaime ask. Brienne turns her head towards him, blinking, “Oh, no, it’s alright to go back. I was just… lost in thought for a moment.”

“Well, I rather have you lost in thought than lost in the water again, that’s for sure,” Jaime huffs, nudging his stump against her forearm to gesture at her to come along, and Brienne’s body follows him before her mind can even register the movement. When Jaime does not remove his arm from her side as they continue down the muddy paths leading to their sleeping quarters, Brienne reckons that the Elder Brother must be somewhere close by, making Jaime think it’s necessary to keep up their little charade, keep telling their impossible tale.

What the Maid of Tarth does not know, however, is that the only people currently making down the hill are holding hands without holding hands, telling no tale, but living it, if only for a while.


End file.
